Discovery Required
No one can oppose you, because you have the power to do what you want. You asked why I talk so much when I know so little. I have talked about things that are far beyond my understanding. You told me to listen and answer your questions. I heard about you from others; now I have seen you with my own eyes. (Job 42:1-5 CEV)
There are always going to be things in life we have "heard about", but have never seen. If we are to be perfectly honest here, we have heard about a whole lot that we don't understand, but we just accept it as fact. If we take everything at face value which we see or hear, we will sometimes form some pretty wrong opinions of others, jump to conclusions about the issues, or get ourselves buying into something that will just rob us of things we hold dear. We often jump to conclusions based on what we hear, but never take the thing we hear about and put it to the test. In turn, we just "react" to the thing we hear and then we might find we are off-base in our understanding. We need both - hearing and listening; discovery and understanding.
Some people "talk a great deal" about what they know very "little" about. Just spend about 20 minutes one day scrolling through the posts online and you will find a great deal which may have your head spinning. It is a truly "prolific" period in terms of our "media" opportunities, is it not? We can post almost anything and in short order, it can go "viral". Why? People are hungry for the "scoop" - they just don't take time to investigate the facts behind the latest "rant", "fad", or "hype". Diseases like COVID19 or CDiff are not exactly beyond my understanding, as I have some basic microbiology classes and understand the basics of how viruses and bacteria find hosts, replicate, and soon cause devastating disease of mass proportion. I have a "working knowledge" of disease, but I cannot say I understand more resistant strains of these "bugs" any better than I understand the basics of the original disease. I "do" understand the principles of disease, how to protect myself and others from "contact" with potential disease, and the best infection control practices I have learned over the years. This is what I can speak to - but maybe not all the details of the actual disease I am protecting myself and others against.
Job is in conversation with God and at this very moment recorded for us for all time, he admits to what we all have a tendency to do on occasion - we talk about things which are beyond our present understanding. In time, we may come into fuller understanding, but if we just hold onto what we believe to be true and never expand our knowledge of the subject at hand, we may have either a "flawed" impression of the truth, or we may never get to the "full" truth. It is indeed God's intent for each of us to become students of the truth - to accept small bits of truth, but to go on to discover the fuller and deeper meaning of truth in our lives. Without this growth, we are always living with something less than the "bigger picture". God's view is infinite - ours is finite. Yet, even in our "finite" view of life, God gives us glimpses into truth beyond our means of discovery - asking us to embrace it and put it to the test. God never accuses us of wrongdoing when we put truth to the test.
"Don’t believe everyone who claims to have the Spirit of God. Test them all to find out if they really do come from God. Many false prophets have already gone out into the world, and you can know which ones come from God. His Spirit says that Jesus Christ had a truly human body. But when someone doesn’t say this about Jesus, you know that person has a spirit that doesn’t come from God and is the enemy of Christ. You knew that this enemy was coming into the world and now is already here." (I John 4:1-3 CEV) Learning to speak about what we have clear and certain knowledge of is important because then we can identify when we are being "fed" something which is untrue or not quite on the mark. We can "judge" the spirit of a man by the spirit which indwells him, so we are told to test those who "claim" truth - not just accept it at face value. We can hear a great deal "about" God from others - coming into a revelation of what is true of God for ourselves is quite different. We can hear about - or we can discover for ourselves. The choice is ours. Just sayin!
There are always going to be things in life we have "heard about", but have never seen. If we are to be perfectly honest here, we have heard about a whole lot that we don't understand, but we just accept it as fact. If we take everything at face value which we see or hear, we will sometimes form some pretty wrong opinions of others, jump to conclusions about the issues, or get ourselves buying into something that will just rob us of things we hold dear. We often jump to conclusions based on what we hear, but never take the thing we hear about and put it to the test. In turn, we just "react" to the thing we hear and then we might find we are off-base in our understanding. We need both - hearing and listening; discovery and understanding.
Some people "talk a great deal" about what they know very "little" about. Just spend about 20 minutes one day scrolling through the posts online and you will find a great deal which may have your head spinning. It is a truly "prolific" period in terms of our "media" opportunities, is it not? We can post almost anything and in short order, it can go "viral". Why? People are hungry for the "scoop" - they just don't take time to investigate the facts behind the latest "rant", "fad", or "hype". Diseases like COVID19 or CDiff are not exactly beyond my understanding, as I have some basic microbiology classes and understand the basics of how viruses and bacteria find hosts, replicate, and soon cause devastating disease of mass proportion. I have a "working knowledge" of disease, but I cannot say I understand more resistant strains of these "bugs" any better than I understand the basics of the original disease. I "do" understand the principles of disease, how to protect myself and others from "contact" with potential disease, and the best infection control practices I have learned over the years. This is what I can speak to - but maybe not all the details of the actual disease I am protecting myself and others against.
Job is in conversation with God and at this very moment recorded for us for all time, he admits to what we all have a tendency to do on occasion - we talk about things which are beyond our present understanding. In time, we may come into fuller understanding, but if we just hold onto what we believe to be true and never expand our knowledge of the subject at hand, we may have either a "flawed" impression of the truth, or we may never get to the "full" truth. It is indeed God's intent for each of us to become students of the truth - to accept small bits of truth, but to go on to discover the fuller and deeper meaning of truth in our lives. Without this growth, we are always living with something less than the "bigger picture". God's view is infinite - ours is finite. Yet, even in our "finite" view of life, God gives us glimpses into truth beyond our means of discovery - asking us to embrace it and put it to the test. God never accuses us of wrongdoing when we put truth to the test.
"Don’t believe everyone who claims to have the Spirit of God. Test them all to find out if they really do come from God. Many false prophets have already gone out into the world, and you can know which ones come from God. His Spirit says that Jesus Christ had a truly human body. But when someone doesn’t say this about Jesus, you know that person has a spirit that doesn’t come from God and is the enemy of Christ. You knew that this enemy was coming into the world and now is already here." (I John 4:1-3 CEV) Learning to speak about what we have clear and certain knowledge of is important because then we can identify when we are being "fed" something which is untrue or not quite on the mark. We can "judge" the spirit of a man by the spirit which indwells him, so we are told to test those who "claim" truth - not just accept it at face value. We can hear a great deal "about" God from others - coming into a revelation of what is true of God for ourselves is quite different. We can hear about - or we can discover for ourselves. The choice is ours. Just sayin!
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