the problem of truth

Recently I received an email from a gentleman outlining why he thought there will be food shortages in the near future. (I am on his email list and get emails from him at times.) He felt like God has been showing him about the chaos that will ensue. He cited several websites as well as a news interview. Since I work in the agricultural field, I was interested in reading what was said. Almost immediately, I spotted some inaccuracies in the "facts" that were presented. Truth did not support his claims

I responded to the gentleman pointing out that some of on what he was basing his email was not truth. Since I have dialogued with him before, I expected a healthy dialogue. To my surprise, I received a rather curt response. He responded by saying that the "facts" were not about American agriculture. I found his response odd since the interviewer clearly asked about the situation in the United States. When noted the words of the interviewer, he refused to dialogue further.

His response to me illustrated a condition of far too many Christians. We frequently create a belief system about a person or a situation which may or may not align with truth. If our belief system does not mesh with the truth, we simply ignore truth so we can cling to our desired beliefs. As such we place ourselves in bondage, creating a fantasy reality in which we live. To maintain our fantasy reality, we have to continue to ignore what really is.

Since the truth sets us free, it would seem to me that people would desire truth. Unfortunately we often choose to ignore the truth about situations and/or people because it would shatter our self-designed deceptions. One of the classic responses of people who refuse to see/embrace truth is their refusal to dialogue. Dialogue will reveal their deception. Since the deception is more desirable than truth (at least to them), the deception must be protected at all costs.

I understand the difficulty of having my belief system challenged by truth. However, I have also discovered the great freedom that comes from walking in the light of what is truth. Embrace the truth...it will set you free.