Denying Reality

One of the greatest tricks of the devil, you may have heard, was convincing the world that he didn’t exist. I always thought that was a great thought and something to consider. We need to consider it because it is so easy for evil to walk us away from reality. This was the sense of the temptation of Eve back in the Garden of Eden. She is encouraged to walk away from God with the challenges of what she knows. “Don’t believe what your eyes tell you. Don’t believe what your ears hear. Only believe what I say.” In the old Marx Brothers movie, Duck Soup, Chico Marx says, “Who you gonna believe, me or your own eyes?” We can laugh at that moment, but we should not laugh at evil’s leverage of detachment. The greatest weapon of evil is separation. I watched dear, dear friends, back in college, go off to join a cult. They were there for some 20 years, listening to and believing one man, and then his son. It was great to have them come back to hearing and seeing the life that was in front of them, plain to their senses. I can still remember receiving the letter from one of them, that got us in touch with the rest of them, saying something like, “I can’t believe I gave up so much of my life for that.” One of the best things about curiosity is that it strengthens our ability to discern what is true and what isn’t. It takes a little time and patience, but it pays off. It teaches us to give up fear by asking, “Why?” or “How does that work?” or “Can you explain what I’m seeing?” It means giving up our desire to be proven right, to stick to our guns, and to make sure our bias is supported. So, that can make it hard, because we have to be humble. As we move more deeply into the age of computer-enhanced or manufactured imagery and sound, we will have to be more and more engaged with our curiosity as Christians. Keeping friendships, talking over points of view, and discovering how others experience or see, this will all become of greater importance. We have a head start on those kinds of relationships as part of the church of Jesus. We just have to take advantage of it. Blessings, Geoff