Be Willing to Seek God and Truth  

I know of someone whose old truck currently isn’t working. He thinks it might be a problem with the battery. However, he hasn’t been able to check it out because when he went to pull the latch to release the hood, it didn’t work. He wasn’t able to begin to figure out the reason for the main issue due to his inability to gain access to where the problem lay. He couldn’t even examine it, much less do anything about it. Therefore, he is first going to have to work to get the hood open before he can tackle whatever is causing his truck not to start.

It reminds me of where we are in our society today. We know that there are some major ills in our world. Our engine isn’t running as it should be. Repairs are desperately needed. Additionally, many individuals find themselves in a similar situation in relation to certain issues in their own personal lives. Something isn’t working right. They know there are problems that need to be addressed.

However, there is a major roadblock standing in the way of our finding appropriate solutions to the brokenness in both our society and in our individual lives. We can’t even pop the hood in order to come to terms with the real issues. We refuse to confront the truth about our world and our own personal condition. We aren’t willing to see reality. We don’t want to hear or accept what God says about it all.

In the days of the prophet Isaiah, he wrote about how people were being encouraged to look elsewhere for guidance about their problems rather than seeking God (see Isaiah 8:19-20). They were being told to “seek those who are mediums and wizards.” He responded. “Should not a people seek their God?” Then he declared, “To the law and to the testimony!” In other words, they needed to look to God for direction. And the main way He had revealed truth was through His Word. Instead of seeking answers from all these other spiritual advisors, they needed to get back to the clear record of what God had already said. If they would listen to Him and accept the truth, then they could get to the heart of all these other issues they were dealing with.

The same holds true for us today. We should quit looking for answers from worldly celebrities, ungodly politicians, and deceptive religious teachers. We need to get back to the Bible – not just using it as a helpful reference from which we can gain a little inspiration or from which we can pull a verse or two out of context in order to prove our own opinions. We need to get back to treating the Scriptures as sacred. We need to view this holy revelation not as man’s ideas but as the uniquely inspired and authoritative Word of God. We have strayed from such a high view of the Bible and as a result are suffering from it.

   We aren’t going to be able to deal successfully with our society’s ills, much less our own personal ones, if we can’t even discern between right and wrong. Not only are the lines being blurred between good and evil, but in many cases we are saying that which is sinful is good and that which is good is evil. We are deceiving ourselves and seem to prefer living our lives in such a fantasy world. We don’t want to look under the hood because the truth makes us uncomfortable and will direct us to change in ways we may not want to change.

Honestly seek God about those issues in our world and in your life today. Go to His Word. See what it really says. Dare to pop the hood and face reality.