Do You Hear What I Hear?
Christmas 2008 was just a few days ago and the phrase of a popular Christmas song keeps resounding in my heart…”do you hear what I hear?’ I’ve contemplated that phrase from many perspectives during the Christmas season. Truly, it has been a month of listening and meditating about the noises all around me that do not stand up to the scrutiny of truth.
Undoubtedly many who read this text will wonder what unrighteous social and political agendas I’ve heard during the holiday season? That kind of verbage is too easily heard everywhere. No one has to listen on purpose for it. What I’ve been hearing for a long time, that too often snuck insidiously into my ears, is what I’ve listened intently for in the last month: Biblical untruth both spoken and lived by well-intentioned Christians.
I suspect many will gasp at the previous sentence. Well-intentioned Christians speaking and living lies? Why? What? I ask you to extend your ear to me as you ask the Holy Spirit for discernment. Today, and over the next few months, I want to explore untruths I accepted as truth, and those I did not accept as truth.
First, an example of how acceptance of an idea—believed to be true– can easily happen.
Ten years ago our son was in the hospital recovering from surgery and a nice family came in to see their loved one in the next bed. My husband and I engaged in general conversation with them and found them to be very nice people who seemed very educated.
When a nurse brought in pitchers of fresh water for our son and the other patient the mother in the family asked the nurse to please exchange it for a pitcher of water without ice in it. At this point, realizing we were intently listening to her words, she kindly included us in her lesson about iced drinks.
She spoke with authority and began by quoting a family doctor who had taught their family that iced drinks cause sweating between the layers of lining around the stomach. The doctor believed and taught that this sweating sat up ripe conditions for bacteria to form and grow between the layers of tissue. The doctor, and now the family who believed the doctor, accepted that this was truth and adopted the practice of refraining from drinking iced drinks to ensure stomach health. She told all of us the practice did cure her husband’s stomach problems…and those of many other people she had shared this information with.
So, gathering my thoughts, the woman and her family—and many others she had shared this information with–accepted the ‘truth’ about iced drinks adversely affecting stomach health. Each person had done so without questioning or searching for corroboration of the validity of this medical fact/truth. And for me, after listening to her reasoning; “truth” learned from a person of authority, a doctor, I blindly accepted this medical “truth” and made it part of my belief system. Starting on that day ten years ago I have religiously practiced it without question; changing my preference of drinking iced drinks to those at room temperature.
As I remembered this day and lesson from ten years ago I had to sit still with God and search my heart for other blindly accepted–unquestioned–truths I had adopted into my life–especially my spiritual life. I began asking God to bring to the light of His Word every place where I have adopted this practice of blindly accepting untruths as ‘truth’ when spoken by well-intentioned, educated/”in the know”, Christian leaders and lay-people.
I am sixty years old and more than at any other time in my life I want to live in the absolute truths of God’s Word…abiding in Christ–filled with the Holy Spirit–that I may bring glory to His name…living in the state-of-being that Christ made available to every child of God by His resurrection. I want to be a vessel that God can use to magnify His light whick shows all men the narrow way to eternal life and sheds light on sin and injustice. I want to live in truth. “But he that doeth [practices habitually—Strong’s Concordance] truth cometh to the light, that his deeds may be made manifest, that they are wrought in God.” John 3:21 Who is the light? Jesus stated he is the way, the truth and the light. I want to come to the light/Jesus in every area of my life; my thoughts, actions, speech…my whole conversation of life. I want to live what the following commentary says of this text: “ John 3:21 – “doeth truth” — whose only object in life is to be and do what will bear the light. Therefore he loves and “comes to the light,” that all he is and does, being thus thoroughly tested, may be seen to have nothing in it but what is divinely wrought and divinely approved. — Jamison-Fawcett-Brown Commentary”
To walk in the depth of God’s truths I know that I must ‘hear’ and ‘see’ and ‘search’ on purpose…filtering all things through the Word of God. 2Ti 2:15 Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.
Act 17:11 “These were more noble than those in Thessalonica, in that they received the word with all readiness of mind, and searched the scriptures daily, whether those things were so.”
John Wesley Commentary: “Act 17:11 – These were more ingenuous – Or generous. To be teachable in the things of God is true generosity of soul.
Sharon Turbyfill said
Hello Sharon,
You have done an excellent job on this new project of yours. I’m on the same page with you. I too, am seeking the LORD for truth and His perfect will for my life at this time. It seems to be slow going though. I have many questions and have been engaged in wrestling matches with the LORD. God has given me answers to my agonizing questions such as “Why LORD, did you allow me to be placed in a family of neglect, abuse, darkness and poverty?”
I hear His kind Fatherly voice telling me that He loves me in spite of my questions. He tells me, It was all to make you My instrument of usefulness in a world of neglect, abuse, darkness and poverty. Now that I’m living in the Light of Jesus’ love, I have tools to help me share with others still held prisoner by the evil one. My journey was long. I remember well the hopelessness, the extreme fear, and severe pain of those who still suffer outside the camp.
By the power of the Holy Spirit in my life, I take my place in God’s battleground as a soldier in combat. It is not and will not be easy, but the fellowship of My Captain is completely sufficient to sustain, and fill me with joy for the assignment. I know you are in the mire of the battlefield too. We must trust and wait for further orders when the time is ready for God to work in our lives.
You have become a dear friend and sister in Christ to me! God bless your ministry to those who know you. Thank you for being a faithful soldier in the Lord’s Army.
Love and prayers,
Sharon Turbyfill