Sunday, December 27, 2015

The Same Truth from Different Sides



My dad and I solved a little mystery. Dad insisted he had sent an e-mail to me with two specific lines he remembered clearly writing. I insisted I had never received it because I would have remembered both those lines. We both thought the other was crazy or at best, forgetful.

This went back and forth a few days, with my dad scouring his e-mails to find the one he knew he'd sent. He couldn't find it. I reread my e-mails from him. Nope. Never sent it, at least not to me. He poured over all his sent mail. He could not find it. That's because you never sent it, I suggested.

Then I got his Christmas card in the mail. The exact two lines he'd mentioned, word for word, shouted from the Christmas card. He had written it, but had not remembered the correct venue by which it was sent. He had sent the message via snail mail, not e-mail.

Strangely, both of us had been certain we were right over conflicting views. Both could NOT be right, and yet both of us WERE.

I paused to ponder this clear message from God.

When one is strongly opinionated (which there is no shortage of in my family,) it is very easy to only see one viewpoint: MINE. When I am convinced I am right, it is hard for me to be diplomatic when the other insists he is right. Truth matters a great deal to me. I am determined not to follow or enable a lie.

Yet, this episode showed me that different sides of the same truth can sometimes look very different.

There are a few sections of the Bible that skeptics say are conflicting. The skeptics insist those conflicts cannot be reconciled, and thus disprove the Bible. Time after time, the apparent conflicts are resolved by additional evidence, such as archaeological finds. The Bible has been proved each time to be true. The seemingly conflicting events have been similarly explained by Biblical scholars.

However, God was not just telling me to use His little object lesson to bolster my confidence in the Bible. I think He was telling me to apply this message to relationships. I am still struggling with how to do that, and in what areas. I just want God to know that I heard Him.
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John 16:13 

When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth, for he will not speak on his own authority, but whatever he hears he will speak, and he will declare to you the things that are to come.

4 comments:

  1. I love this story, and have been in similar situations (actually almost every day) - this is such a good lesson - that things are not always as they seem, even though we can't possibly imagine another scenario that is the real truth. It reminds me of the famous "cookie story". Do you know that one?

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  2. I swear, Vicky Kaseorg, you're in my head...there's a message here for me...need a nap first...

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  3. I swear, Vicky Kaseorg, you're in my head...there's a message here for me...need a nap first...

    ReplyDelete

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