Trust Issues

 

Who/what do we trust? Why? For how long? Even if we find out we've been lied to. Even if what we trust causes anarchy and chaos that threatens to destroy us.

All it takes, apparently, for humans, in this modern age of all things delusional, to pay attention to, believe, give credence to, have faith in (worship), and, ultimately, thereby grant considerable power over us, is essentially whatever we want to accept our redefining of what goodness is. How many times have you heard the argument, "A good God would never allow _______ (fill in the blank)."

Apparently we, in all our great modernity, know better than God what good is. 

In short, it comes down to God replacement with the more easily acceptable god of human good. Since the bar is way lower now it's therefore way easier to reach and then we can collectively feel good about our goodness without having to stand for something unpopular, that requires considerably more integrity, as God defines/requires it.

Apparently, humans prefer to see life through rose colored glasses. Either that or we are just plain dumb. There's an old saying - we can't know what we don't know, but I could add, we can't know what we don't want to know either.

We put too much trust in icons, symbols, high-minded sounding words. Credentials. How many open-minded kids sit in a classroom and automatically assume that the one teaching them is telling the truth and not just spewing out personal bias?

Have you ever read/seen reporting on something you absolutely know is untrue? Did you feel helpless because everyone else bought into the false narrative because the iconic source is not challengeable?

Have you ever had a bad/incompetent doctor, dentist, lawyer? Ever been at the mercy of a badly compromised judge? Ever had to deal with a power mad self righteous HOA president?

Have you ever been fact-checked or censored on social media for speaking an easily proven truth?

Do you really believe someone who has compromised his/her way to stardom/celebrity status or political position has the most reliable opinion on - anything? 

How many Christians trust that the man in the pulpit, who makes millions of dollars off the business of preaching, music albums, and/or books, is an uncompromised disciple of Christ?

Try reading the label on the cereal you've been eating since you were a kid.

How many businesses and charities, started decades ago with great and noble ideals, the names, slogans and trademarks of which are familiar to nearly everyone on the planet, have been taken over by not so good people? How can you know if you don't know how to pay attention to the devil in the details? 

Where is discernment? Whatever happened to think-for-yourself?

How many agencies and charities whose names trigger warm fuzzy trust, are now simply tools of sinister money/power hungry social manipulators?

Even when we know the truth, the con artists, miscreants and liars still get away with their scams because - why? We allow it. How many people have fallen for and continue to think a total stranger in another country has miraculously found their email and wants to give them millions of dollars? Because it sounds so good?

We prefer our bubble of good and therefore hold tight to our excuses and let the con artists succeed in scamming us with untruth. The only way I can explain this is to conclude most people either desperately want to believe that no one lies, or perhaps they can't bare to believe they were suckered and bought into a lie because it just sounded so good so they now can't let go of the lie and admit they were wrong. 

Or maybe lies and lying are systemic now. There's a new familiar word - systemic.

This, then, on a much larger scale is how so called 'experts' are allowed to steer the ship. We blindly trust credentials and titles and long established trademarks rather than ask questions with common sense. Or, more importantly, we have no idea (or care?) what their true agendas are in the here and now and therefore where they are leading us toward tomorrow.

Maybe we are too busy living our lives so we just prefer to trust without verifying. We blindly depend on the good sounding rhetoric and then ignore what they do behind closed doors imagining that it doesn't really matter anyway. We get out of it what we want - if we believe the lie - we get to feel good and righteous.

Are we simply gullible or finally, at last, completely dumbed down? And, more importantly, where do we go from here? Up? Or further down? How far down is down? 

My mother used an old saying on me when I was making dumb choices, "If everyone was jumping out a ten story window would you jump too?"

Here's another old saying - if you want to know the truth of a thing, start by following the money.

I could add - the love of 'feeling good' leads many astray as well.

For Him,

Meema

1 Timothy 6:10 For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil: which some reaching after have been led astray from the faith, and have pierced themselves through with many sorrows.