Path That Leads To Truth

(Psalms 25:4) Show me thy ways, O Jehovah; Teach me thy paths.  (25:5) Guide me in thy truth, and teach me; For thou art the God of my salvation; For thee do I wait all the day.  

There’s something about a rainy day that makes me want to clean something. Closets, cabinets and shelves require a certain amount of physical effort so I opted for cleaning out computer files. I opened a file titled “thinker” with not a clue what might be inside and I found dozens of snippets of quotes from those I consider to have great minds. I’ve mentioned before that I have always loved quotes. They often speak big truth in the smallest number of words. 

Lately, I’ve been hyper-focused on truth and my fear that there is a possibility a day is coming that God might remove truth from those who refuse to see, so I offer the following quote from A.W. Tozer which seems to say better than anything I could compose:

The world is full of seekers, true enough, and they gravitate quite naturally toward the church. Seekers after peace of mind are plentiful enough to keep the printing presses busy; seekers after physical health are always with us in sufficient numbers to make our leading faith healers comfortably rich; seekers after success and safety are legion, as our popular religious leaders know too well. But real seekers after truth are almost as rare as albino deer. And here is why: Truth is a glorious but hard master. It makes moral demands upon us. It claims the sovereign right to control us, to strip us, even to slay us as it chooses. 

Truth will never stoop to be a servant but requires that all men serve it. It never flatters men and never compromises with them. It demands all or nothing and refuses to be used or patronized. It will be all in all or it will withdraw into silence. It was Christ who capitalized truth and revealed that it was not an it at all but a Being with all the attributes of personality. I am the Truth, He said, and followed truth straight to the cross. The truth seeker must follow Him there; and that is the reason few men seek truth.

The truth in the Person of the Logos, the Word, is seeking to illuminate the minds of men. That was the true Light, which lighteth every man that cometh into the world. For this reason, when we conceive ourselves to be honest seekers who cannot find the light we are in a state of dangerous self-deception. It is a grave situation. Unless help comes quickly the darkness may close down upon us permanently. If therefore the light that is in thee be darkness, how great is that darkness. Behind all our failure to find light is an unconfessed and possibly an unconscious love of darkness. 

We should always remember that we are accountable not only for the light we have but also for the light we might have if we were willing to obey it. Truth is sovereign and will not allow itself to be trifled with. And it is easy to find for it is trying to find us. Obedience is the big problem: and unwillingness to obey is the cause of continued darkness.

For Christ,

Meema

This is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil. For every one that doeth evil hateth the light, neither cometh to the light, lest his deeds should be reproved. But he that doeth truth cometh to the light, that his deeds may be made manifest, that they are wrought in God. (John 3:19-21)

Mercies In Disguise

(Matthew 25:29) For unto every one that hath shall be given, and he shall have abundance: but from him that hath not, even that which he hath shall be taken away.  (25:30) And cast ye out the unprofitable servant into the outer darkness: there shall be the weeping and the gnashing of teeth. 

She planted flowers wherever she lived. My mother loved flowers, understood them, and they responded to her loving hand and rewarded her with copious, multicolored blooms all spring, summer and fall. Once her annuals were planted, she spent her mornings pruning and pulling off old blooms, humming and singing quietly, lost in the joy of nurturing. She knew exactly where to pinch the bud of a geranium to make it produce a double bloom. Otherwise humble petunias were lush and exotic looking. They spilled over in tumbling cascades, huge ruffled masses of dewy, velvety blossoms, no matter how hot or dry the weather. Mother's flowers didn't seem to notice.  

            

Over the years, she kept up the horticultural habits she began as a young woman and continued planting even when she didn't own the house or yard, though her back hurt and her knees were enlarged from arthritis. I always thought it was because she needed the color and gentle beauty of growing things to enliven her often mediocre environments. While this was true, it was only partly so. It wasn't until I was well past having reached adulthood that I understood that she was simply living her most basic philosophy - be a good steward of whatever you have been given - leave it better than it came to you.

You can also say it this way: you will know a grateful heart (a good tree-Matthew 7:18) by the good fruit it bears. 

The moral of the parable of the talents is usually interpreted as, Christians are expected to multiply whatever blessings are given to them. But the story doesn’t address how to recognize a blessing. One servant was given five talents, another only one. In today’s ‘fairness-based’ culture, one might feel sorry for the poor servant who seemed to be shorted. A sympathetic group might form to protest that a great injustice had been done and the poor servant who was not only relieved of his single talent was also thrown into outer darkness where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth. Further, one could argue, “but all the poor chap did was hide his talent, he didn’t steal it or refuse to give it back.”

The problem with that childish rationale is that it ignores our Father’s command to bear good fruit, regardless how much or how little one has been given. Only in a self-justified culture will the issue of what a blessing ought to be becomes more important than being grateful for and doing the most good with what one has been given, however small, however unblessing-like it seems to be.

Looking beyond the long accepted moral of the parable of the talents, does it not also speak directly to those who refuse to recognize their blessings? Those who define a blessing as only that which meets their expectations will always miss the blessing in disguise. The danger in not recognizing the blessing is, of course, keeping it buried, insuring the impossibility of it being multiplied and thus ultimately the threat of it being taken away. 

It seems to me there are those who will always rise to God’s expectations of a fruitful, grateful servant. These are the meek who inherit the earth and those to whom much has been given and therefore more is given, even as more is expected of them. This might mean material goods, but more importantly it means spiritual wisdom and humility. Those who are still waiting for the yacht to come so they can finally launch into fruitfulness, ignore the modest dinghy bobbing next to the dock. And so, unfortunately, they end up missing the boat. 

I’m reminded of something a friend once told me about her turning point during her struggle to insist that God speak to her in the way she wanted to hear Him, bless her in the way she wanted to be blessed until finally He said to her, “I will not strive with you forever.”  She claims that the heart-stopping rebuke was the best blessing she ever received because she could see her miserable self through God's eyes, and she surrendered.

'Cause what if Your blessings come through raindrops
What if Your healing comes through tears
And what if a thousand sleepless nights
Are what it takes to know You're near
What if my greatest disappointments
Or the achings of this life
Is the revealing of a greater thirst this world can't satisfy
And what if trials of this life
The rain, the storms, the hardest nights
Are Your mercies in disguise

Lyrics from “Blessings” by Laura Story 

For Christ,

Meema

(Matthew 25:31) But when the Son of man shall come in his glory, and all the angels with him, then shall he sit on the throne of his glory:  (25:32) and before him shall be gathered all the nations: and he shall separate them one from another, as the shepherd separateth the sheep from the goats;  (25:33) and he shall set the sheep on his right hand, but the goats on the left.  (25:34) Then shall the King say unto them on his right hand, Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.

Opinion, Fact & Fiction

(Proverbs 10:21) The lips of the righteous feed many; But the foolish die for lack of understanding.  

Opinion is rampant nowadays. Or perhaps it’s simply louder stronger because there are so many more ways to express it. We are inundated daily with opinion. It has come to the point that opinion and one's ‘right to opinion’ has been elevated to the new status of being more important than truth. 

Sometimes we forget that opinion isn’t fact, though.  Instead of exercising a little  discernment we blindly trust the words of one who speaks them well because they sound good while completely ignoring that the speaker’s goal is to keep us under control and accomplishes this by saying only what we want to hear. 

Fact is not opinion and is usually too hard to hear because it pierces through what is false and inflicts painful internal introspection. Who likes that?

Jesus taught in parables. I used to wonder about that but now I think I know why. Human nature is a child that must be given its bitter medicine wrapped in an easier to swallow fiction. The difference between a sweet fiction spoken to keep a  lie from being exposed and a parable is the convicting moral at the end. If there is no moral, it’s probably just another lie. 

So, here’s an old parable for you. Take from it what you will.

For Christ,

Meema

John Godfrey Saxe's [1816-1887] version of the famous Indian legend:

It was six men of Indostan
To learning much inclined,
Who went to see the Elephant
(Though all of them were blind),
That each by observation
Might satisfy his mind.

The First approach'd the Elephant,
And happening to fall
Against his broad and sturdy side,
At once began to bawl:
"God bless me! but the Elephant
Is very like a wall!"

The Second, feeling of the tusk,
Cried, -"Ho! what have we here
So very round and smooth and sharp?
To me 'tis mighty clear
This wonder of an Elephant
Is very like a spear!"

The Third approached the animal,
And happening to take
The squirming trunk within his hands,
Thus boldly up and spake:
"I see," quoth he, "the Elephant
Is very like a snake!"

The Fourth reached out his eager hand,
And felt about the knee.
"What most this wondrous beast is like
Is mighty plain," quoth he,
"'Tis clear enough the Elephant
Is very like a tree!"

The Fifth, who chanced to touch the ear,
Said: "E'en the blindest man
Can tell what this resembles most;
Deny the fact who can,
This marvel of an Elephant
Is very like a fan!"

The Sixth no sooner had begun
About the beast to grope,
Then, seizing on the swinging tail
That fell within his scope,
"I see," quoth he, "the Elephant
Is very like a rope!"

And so these men of Indostan
Disputed loud and long,
Each in his own opinion
Exceeding stiff and strong,
Though each was partly in the right,
And all were in the wrong!

MORAL.

So oft in theologic wars,
The disputants, I ween,
Rail on in utter ignorance
Of what each other mean,
And prate about an Elephant
Not one of them has seen!