2002-07-04 - Lies of Omission, Part 2

Rom 1:20-23 For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made, so that they are without excuse. ²¹ For even though they knew God, they did not honor Him as God, or give thanks; but they became futile in their speculations, and their foolish heart was darkened. ²² Professing to be wise, they became fools, ²³ and exchanged the glory of the incorruptible God for an image in the form of corruptible man and of birds and four-footed animals and crawling creatures. (NAS)

Life is filled with choices for most people. It is those choices that can be the difference between eating today or not for some, and for others what to buy, sell, trade or which career path to take. Sometimes choices are thrust upon us. One of the web store servers at my office crashed yesterday at 5:00pm. That dictated that I would get home at 10:30am today. The choice was made for me by a bad memory module and career choices I made over the last 20 years.

There were definitely times during the wee hours of the morning when I was sure we had nailed the problem down. My steadfast, highly trained professional belief meant absolutely nothing when the server started reporting the same errors again just prior to crashing for the Nth time. In some instances we had definitely found something that needed attention. But none of them were the root cause of the problem that was causing the operating system to fail. As much as each step along the way seemed to be correct, the truth remained that the required corrective action had not yet been taken no matter how much certainty I approached each stage of the troubleshooting.

There are vast portions of the population of the world today that believe God is a concept that mankind needs to outgrow and leave behind. Religion is an anarchism that holds the human race back from making progress. They are totally sincere in this belief and they do what they can to make choices that are supportive of that belief. In some places where religious zeal replaces common sense, as in when planes are flown into buildings or suicide bombers kill shoppers in a market, there is something to their point. The idea that God is dead or  that He never actually existed, or that God would approve of these acts of terror or holds the world back with Puritanical ideas on sexuality or human relationships, or we have the wisdom to dictate when life begins or ends are as incorrect as any one of the steps that felt so correct during the time the web store system was down.

I have known very intelligent individuals who had a serious ability to parse through a problem and get to the meat of a topic. Even these very bright people will take a wrong turn now and again. I remember one instance where one of these gentlemen were positively convinced of the equivalent of 2+2=5. It was obvious to the rest of us that he was close but had taken a wrong logical turn. His since belief in his position however was not enough to change the truth. The fact is that God makes Himself known in our lives through any number of ways. They are sometimes subtle or mundane, and at other times spectacular and powerful. They are more often the former rather than the latter, but they are very real none the less. There is an old saying that states that the more we know the more we know what we don't know. Mankind is capable of some very impressive feats from the International Space Station to planetary exploration via space probes and manned Moon landings to mighty skyscrapers and bridges to huge airliners in the sky and telescopes that literally turn back the hands of time as they peer into the depths of space. But in spite of all of this collected wisdom and ability, the fact that some of us are completely sure that God is an ancient idea that needs to be set aside does not make it truth.

To make this choice is to lie to one's own self and the truth that is evident around us daily. To ignore these truths, to omit them from the decision making process that lead to our choices is a dangerous practice.

Lord Jesus - give men and women the desire to be truthful with themselves and those around them and the view the world around them and make their decisions and choices. Amen.

Grace & Peace,
Mike

mhoskins@cfdevotionals.org
http://www.cfdevotionals.org