What is truth? What a classic question, and one worth asking.

This is the foundation of the question, from ancient script. John 18:37-38:

³⁷ “You are a king, then!” said Pilate.

Jesus answered, “You say that I am a king. In fact, the reason I was born and came into the world is to testify to the truth. Everyone on the side of truth listens to me.”

³⁸ “What is truth?” retorted Pilate. With this he went out again to the Jews gathered there and said, “I find no basis for a charge against him.

As a nod to pop culture, and another classic found in the movie A Few Good Men:

Jessup: I’ll answer the question. You want answers?

Kaffee: I think I’m entitled!

Jessup: You want answers?!

Kaffee: I want the truth!

Jessup: You can’t handle the truth!

In trying to determine what is truth, I begin with the (correct) assumption that there is Absolute Truth.

God either says yes, no, or wait. He never says “It depends.”

What got me thinking about this question is an observation of The Way Things Currently Stand.

There’s COVID-19. As I’m writing this, I’m still quarantined. I’m waiting to turn that corner people keep talking about.

Specifically, it’s the mask thing. I can’t even.

Should you wear a mask or not?

What would Jesus do? Would He say “it depends?”

Beats me. He hasn’t let me in on His counsel on that one. Personally, I wore a mask and got COVID-19 anyway, which gives some folks an excuse to say “see?” Well, pilgrim, if wearing a mask before I tested positive kept someone else from getting it, then I have problems making that a bad move on my part. So there.

Building on that, then, I’d have to say there IS a truth about how the virus spreads, where it came from, how it can be treated, all that. God created the virus, and if you start going on about how it emerged from a Chinese lab, okay, but God still allowed it. Man can’t create life, but it seems that he can manipulate it. That’s all I got to say about that.

Another thought about truth – and I abhor bringing this up, just because it devalues my spirit – we’ve had this election in the United States recently, right? You probably heard about it. I hope you participated in it.

What is truth? Specifically, who is the president gonna be?

Here we go: we can discuss and debate if there was fraud, and to what extent. I just bet your mind is already made up.

Buried beneath all the hype and hyperbole and anger and frustration there is a truth out there: someone has been elected president, and God knew who that was to be before the foundation of the world was laid. So we/they just need to get at the truth – there is a truth out there – and then we all collectively abide by that even if it’s something we don’t want to hear. We can’t handle the truth … sometimes.

That’s the crux of the matter, isn’t it? We say we want the truth, but then we say “What is truth?” When we learn the truth, and we don’t like it, we might just go somewhere else to hear the truth we want.

Oh, y’all. That’s not the way it works. Don’t be that way.

I’ll illustrate.

I won’t go into the dynamics of why all these platforms have been on a meteoric rise. It’s a definite thing, though.

And I am not, not, not bashing any of these, nor the folks that have embraced them. That is absolutely fine and commendable.

What has brought these platforms to the forefront is that many, many people have looked around themselves, become disgusted at what they’ve seen as bias, and gone somewhere else with others of like mind.

The danger for some people (SOME, not all) is that they’ve gone looking for “a truth” that suits them, that confirms what they’ve already come to believe.

Chuck Swindoll obliquely addresses this tendency in a different context:

We refuse to become the “rabbit-hole Christians” John Stott speaks of, popping out of our holes and racing from our insulated caves to all-Christian gatherings only to rush back again. For salt to be tasted and for light to be seen, we must make contact. We are personally responsible.

That’s a lot of background for me to set up my thesis statement. Ready?

Truth is truth, no matter where you find it. And we should never fear the truth.

All truth is ultimately God’s truth. 

Now, Satan is a liar, and the father of lies. He’s really, really good at wrapping his lies in the mantle of truth, and even we believers can get suckered, big time.

Paraphrasing ancient script:

You shall know the truth, and the truth will make you mad.

Wrong, wrong, wrong. It’ll set you free.

Look, pilgrim, I get it. I want to have my beliefs confirmed independently. There’s that carnal streak in me that sometimes lives to say “told ya so!”

But if I’m going to honestly ask, “What is truth?”, then I need to be willing to make peace with that.

Even if it means my guy isn’t elected.

Even if it means that there was something to COVID-19 all along, and there are ways of curtailing its spread that we haven’t done.

And even if it means my little word is rocked in other ways and cherished beliefs are turned on their collective heads.

I don’t want to make things harder on myself than I need to. Here’s God, offering His truths (and remember, truth is absolute from His vantage point), and I build this social or society-driven wall that protects me from what I don’t want to hear.

I spend all my time with like-minded people and automatically assume other folks are delusional at best and evil at worst.

That makes it hard for me to be salt and light.

What’s the answer to “What is truth?”

To the extent that we can, we need to:

• Check our hearts and emotions. There is a place for righteous anger, but I’m guessing you know when you’re righteously angry and just plain mad. There is a difference.
• Hold up what we see in society against the backdrop of scripture. And if God “reveals” something to you in scripture that doesn’t hold up to orthodoxy or 2000-plus years of scholarship, you’re about to mess up.
• God is not going to reveal something to you and something else to another that is contradictory.
• We can factor in differences of opinion, but we can’t make truth unique to ourselves, and we shouldn’t detest others who don’t see things the same way as we do.
• Most of us were born with an open mind. Let God pry that open if you’ve allowed it to slam shut.
• It’s all going to be okay because God is sovereign.

“What is truth?” It’s not what you say it is. It’s what God says it is.

Be well. Comments are, as always, welcome.

NOTE: I first posted this blog, The Gate of the Year, back in June. I’m not one to recycle my posts, but, I dunno. It came to mind this morning during my quiet time. So many folks as of this writing are on edge, strung out, worried senseless. This was comforting back in June, and even more so today. Read it and share it. 

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“The Gate of the Year” is the popular name of a poem by Minnie Louise Haskins. She titled it “God Knows.” I’ll share its best-known stanza in a moment.

A quick history lesson.

According to Wikipedia, the poem was written in 1908 and privately published in 1912. King George VI quoted it in his 1939 Christmas broadcast to the British empire. It was thought that his wife, Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Consort, shared it with him. Now it’s believed that Princess Elizabeth, aged 13, gave the poem to her father.

The Gate of the Year gave comfort to the Queen Mother all her days, and was a real inspiration to Brits in the Second World War. She had its words engraved on stone plaques and mounted on the gates of the King George VI Memorial Chapel at Windsor Castle.

These are some powerful words:

And I said to the man who stood at the gate of the year:
“Give me a light that I may tread safely into the unknown.”
And he replied:
“Go out into the darkness and put your hand into the Hand of God.
That shall be to you better than light and safer than a known way.”
So I went forth, and finding the Hand of God, trod gladly into the night.
And He led me towards the hills and the breaking of day in the lone East.

I wish I’d written this.

So why this current fascination on my part? Let me parse it.

And I said to the man who stood at the gate of the year: “Give me a light that I may tread safely into the unknown.”

Here are two fundamental wishes. These are especially meaningful when you have some hard questions and answers aren’t forthcoming (hello, 2020!)

The desire for light is self-evident. You want to be able to see where you’re going.

“Tread safely into the unknown.” If light is available, then the unknown isn’t quite as scary. In these dark days, if you knew what lay ahead, wouldn’t you be comforted by knowing? (Or not; if what lay ahead is disastrous, you might not want to know.)

There have been times in my life – and, in all likelihood, yours too – when you took a leap of faith and hit the ground with a sickening thud. Your faith was misplaced. You let the clamor of the world drown out that still, small voice. Or, worse, you “followed your heart.” Ancient script teaches that the heart is deceitful above all things. Following your heart sounds noble, but it’s not a good idea.

And he replied:
“Go out into the darkness and put your hand into the Hand of God.
That shall be to you better than light and safer than a known way.”

Yes yes yes.

You’ve probably said things like:

I thought God wanted me to marry him.

I thought I was supposed to take that job.

Moving to a new house felt right, somehow.

Here’s the lesson here:

• It’s not a matter of removing the darkness. It’s a matter of accepting the darkness and prevailing in it.
• God’s hand is big, protective, and firm. He doesn’t let go of you. People might. He won’t.
• If it’s safety you crave, then the most perfectly safe place in the universe is in the hand of God, and it doesn’t matter how dark it is.

So I went forth, and finding the Hand of God, trod gladly into the night.

Here’s a subtle nuance. The picture is of someone (you? me?) moving first and then finding the hand of God. It’s knowing that He’s already there, whether you have reached Him or not. The poet draws the picture of taking God’s hand and trodding gladly into the night. No fear, no apprehension. Just the simple joy of knowing God’s got you.

It doesn’t matter the circumstances of what brought on the darkness. They might not change.  The mandate is to be glad in those circumstances. Crazy, I know. But it all is centered in God holding your hand.

And He led me towards the hills and the breaking of day in the lone East.

Sweet.

Get this picture.

• God leads, and the journey begins in darkness.
• He leads toward the hills. Hills conceal, but there is the promise of something else beyond what can be seen.
• The day breaks in the East. There is the certainty of sunrise, and, blessedly, visual confirmation that it is indeed dawn. A new day with new possibilities and new hope.

The Gate of the Year

So heart be still:
What need our little life
Our human life to know,
If God hath comprehension?
In all the dizzy strife
Of things both high and low,
God hideth His intention.

God knows. His will
Is best. The stretch of years
Which wind ahead, so dim
To our imperfect vision,
Are clear to God. Our fears
Are premature; In Him,
All time hath full provision.

Then rest: until
God moves to lift the veil
From our impatient eyes,
When, as the sweeter features
Of Life’s stern face we hail,
Fair beyond all surmise
God’s thought around His creatures
Our mind shall fill.^[3]