Have you ever searched for something critical to your day and not been able to find it? Maybe it was your keys, or your wallet, or that new blue-striped tie you wanted to wear to your 9 o’clock meeting. Such an experience is both frustrating and discouraging. It makes you just want to give up.
I’ve been there. For instance, I’ve been known to search for matching colored socks because no clean ones are left in the dresser. Recently, tempted to go in the dirty clothes hamper to pull out yesterday’s socks (even though they were dirty, and knowing full well that this was not the right thing to do), I reluctantly asked my wife, Toni, if she had seen the sock. (My wife has this knack of finding things that are right in front of me.) Of course, yet again, Toni came through, lovingly saying, “There it is!”
Discovering truth can be like my wife spotting the burgundy sock I just could not find. Truth can be right in front of our eyes. Yet somehow we miss it. Perhaps the shadow of another object is blocking our vision. Or it’s hidden around the corner, just out of sight.
Recently I took an eye examination. To test my depth perception, I had to hold a round tube with a button at the top. Each time I saw a dot blink, I had to press the button. The dot appeared at different frequencies and different degrees of brightness. In short, I had to be focused. When I thought the dot would appear, it didn’t, and where I thought it would be, it wasn’t.
Discovering the truth about manhood can be like watching for a blinking dot when you don’t know where, or when, to look. And unlike my eye exam, discovering truth is further complicated by our society blurring the lines between lies and truth. It’s as if the eye doctor would say: “Press the button when you see the blinking dots. But unblinking dots are good too. And they might not even be dots, but something else. Good luck!”
Can you imagine?! Ridiculous, you say. Yet this is what society does to truth. And because of this reality, finding truth often requires more focus than a simple eye examination.
Where Truth Is Found
Let me be direct and state something up front: Truth can only be found in God. Revelation is from God. God is, and was, and will be, and He has chosen to disclose His very character to us. When we root our lives as believers in Jesus Christ, the Son of God, this truth becomes life-giving and transformational.
You might ask: How has God revealed this truth to us? He has used unusual vehicles, humans, to write His message: the Bible. Inspired by God, the writers of the Bible took down for us God’s very Word. (Theologians call this special revelation.) And He has self-disclosed His character by creating all things, the universe (what theologians call general revelation). God Himself declared His universe reveals His existence when He said through the prophet Isaiah, “Do you not know? Have you not heard? The Lord is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He will not grow tired or weary, and his understanding no one can fathom” (Isaiah 40:28).
Adapted from Manhood, Let The Truth Be Told.
Copyright © 2008 Tom Fortson. All rights reserved. Used with Permission. Published by Moody Publishing.
