What is Truth?
Over the next 30 days, we will be posting a picture of all of our kids and asking for specific prayer for each of them. It will be on the All Things New Facebook page primarily, so make sure that you have "liked" the page and that you see the posts that we put up there. Since we have gone 2 years since being able to take a team, it is important that we keep our kids at the center of our ministry and that we continue to pray for them specifically and by name.
Truth should be one of the easiest words in our language to define and to understand. Nothing could be further from the "Truth" pun intended.
After living with teenagers and kids in Haiti for years, it is clear to me that truth is messy. Trust me when I say that we have had our share of "bending the truth" at All Things New over the years. After having babies and toddlers and seeing how quickly and easily they learn to lie to suit their desires, truth got even messier.
It is also interesting to see the practice of truth played out in 2 different cultures. It would take a whole different type of blog to describe the differences, but the way people interact and share truths with each other definitely varies from one culture to another.
The problem with the messiness of truth is that the concept of truth is absolute and clear. Meaning something cannot be both true and untrue at the same time and that there are certain things that are true regardless of the situation. Unfortunately, our culture has turned "truth" into anything but an absolute concept. Here are some ways we have done that:
1. We have allowed truth to be relative.
2. We have placed the concept of "tolerance" above the concept of "truth" in far too many circumstances.
3. We have lost the "ideal" that points us to what truth is because He is truth. There has to be a standard of truth, and if you lose that standard then you lose the concept. GOD is that standard. Without a standard, an absolute does not exist.
In our world, our inability to understand truth has led us to forget about others and to focus more and more on ourselves. Let me give you just a few examples:
- Truth is what calls us to take care of "widows, orphans, aliens, and those who cannot care for themselves."
- Truth is what leads us to love other people no matter what.
- Truth is what leads us to fight against social evils like racism, abortion, etc.
When we believe that there are things that are true in this world, then we strive for those things. When we lose that belief then we become the creators of "truth" and our truths almost inevitable begin to focus on our own desires.
There is another side to the truth that I am speaking of in this blog. A side of truth that makes it one of the greatest things in the world. Please pay attention to this next set of ideas because it is what makes the standard of absolute truth that we should aspire to worthy of being aspired to.
The truth of GOD is not just a pious, cold, unloving truth that exists to make others bend to its will. It is not this standard that we all strive to, ultimately fall short of, and in the end have to run away from in shame. Our standard of truth is also the standard of:
- Love
- Justice
- Grace
- Faith
- Hope
- Salvation
- Love (I did mean to write it twice)
When we run away from things that are true, we run away from GOD. When we practice tolerance, selfishness, hatred, indifference, envy, and pride over the truth of the Gospel then we miss what GOD has called us to do and who GOD has called us to be.
As followers of Christ and lovers of truth, we must take a stand in our families, our work place, and in our world.