It is an old adage that I’ve heard from early childhood. “If you say something long enough and often enough you will eventually believe it to be true regardless of its truthfulness.” Several children’s stories draw upon this adage as the basis for the story. “The Little Engine that Could.” Is the one which comes quickly to mind. You remember the little engine that was faced with pulling the train over a tall mountain. It began with thinking, “I think I can, I think I can,” which quickly changed into “I know I can, I know I can.”
What with the ease with which e-mails are sent and forward it is little wonder that falsehoods soon take on a legitimacy of “fact” simply because they have been repeated often enough and long enough that individuals begin to believe them. Such was the case with Franklin Graham’s statement: “In most Muslim countries, ‘We can't have a church. We're not able to build synagogues. It's forbidden.’" Which is absolutely false. Only Sadia Arabia forbids the construction of Christian and/or Jewish places of worship and yet, since it has been “floating” out there thanks to the forwarding technique of e-mails people started to believe it without checking out the facts.
Recently I read a statistic that states: “39% of American 9-to-17-year-olds who said the information they find online is always correct.” (TIME magazine, October 18, 2010 issue). That could be a little scary, but the reality of such statistics do not surprise me any longer given the reality as how easy their parents simply forward on all sorts of material as if it was true … simply because it came to them via the internet.
There is an interesting trend with some of these false e-mails. Someone along the way has started adding a line something like: “This has been checked out on Snopes.com and found to be accurate.” So, naturally, that is like waving a red flag in my face and I double check to see just what snopes.com actually says about the item in question. Guess what? Snopes.com had found almost 100% of the items to be inaccurage and false. At this point I reply to the sender what I have found and insert the like to snopes.com so they can check it out for themselves. Only one individual has gotten verbally abusive about me checking out his “facts” and in no certain terms has told me that both snopes and I are dead wrong. End of story!
The other reply that I send which hasn’t always been received well is one that reads: “I neither read nor forward political e-mails. Please refrain from forwarding any of those kind of e-mails to me in the future. Thank you for your kind cooperation.” This sure has dried up my incoming e-mails because some of these individuals also refrain from forwarding all those other e-mails. It is an interesting world in which we are now living.
All of this actually leads me to the basic thought that I wanted to share in today’s blog. John Wesley quoting Peter Bohler was fond of telling his preachers, "Preach faith until you have it, then, because you have it, you will preach faith." As I have shared it with my congregations I always turn it around just a little and state: Live by faith until you have it, then, because you have it, you will live by faith.
There is absolutely no other way to live in this world except by faith. Many have tried and found life to be wanting … nothing more than a long, tedious struggle … because eventually a problem or situation will be faced that will destroy the central core of a person’s being unless that core is shielded by faith. Marriages have failed, jobs lost, lives taken, spouses and children abused, drugs abused and a thousand-and-one other terrible things by those who have not built their lives on the solid rock of faith.
Jesus actually told one of his story about the foolish person who built their house on sand only to watch it washed away by the rains and floods and the wise person who built their house on the rock and the rains and floods came, but the wise person’s house stood firm. Read for yourself in Matthew 7:24-27.
Each of us makes sure that our home is safe with a solid foundation, good leak-proof roofing, security systems, and various kinds of insurance. Why? Because we value our home, we’ve invested a great deal of time, energy and finances in establishing it as our primary place of residence. Why wouldn’t we make the same kind of investment in our spiritual life? “Oh,” says the non-believer, “I will get around to doing that as soon as I am given a faith to do that!” “But,” says I, “why not simply start to life as if you already have that kind of faith and before you know it you will actually will have that kind of faith.” A solid foundation on which to build a life – safe, secures life!
Quote for today: God our Father has made all things depend on faith so that whoever has faith will have everything, and whoever does not have faith will have nothing. Martin Luther
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment