Desperately Seeking Truth

As an apostle, I am concerned with truth. I am all about uncovering old truth lost, teaching truth and finding truth wherever it may be hiding. Truth is truth and it doesn't matter where it's found, as long as you sift out anything in it that is false. Just because some thought "hangs out with" truth, doesn't make it true (truth by association!).

You can find truth in some of the strangest places. Fiction books, "old wives tales" and mythology are sometimes based on truth. But where truth is found doesn't dilute or negate it. Truth is often found mixed up with lies, but we must always be careful not to "throw out the baby with the bath water."

The problem with finding truth is that we humans have an innate ability to turn away truth that makes us feel uncomfortable. Or just plain inconvenience us. We dislike it even more when truth uncovered means what we have previously believed is wrong. Ooo we really don't like to be wrong!

I just read a quote from Chuck Missler: "The only sure barrier to truth is to assume you already have it."

In the Church we often take what we have been taught all our lives as truth. Sometimes we do this without even researching for ourselves. We believe because we were told (Why? Because). And we really get into trouble when we start teaching those things as if they are facts, but we don't know them to be true- we just believe the people who taught us. Sometimes those "people" aren't even specific persons, just ambiguous "blobs of humankind" that we vaguely remember hearing things from (I heard that in sixth grade . . . I think)!

You know the old game where one person whispers something in the next person's ear. Then they pass it down the line until the last person tells what was said. Isn't it often funny how badly the message gets twisted?!

This is not funny when it comes to truth. If we don't know it for ourselves, teaching it as fact only gets the message twisted (especially if it's not truth). When this happens over and over again, the end message is nothing like it should be. Truth is long gone and we are passing on nothing less than half-truths, which are lies. {Yeowch!}

I don't want to assume I already have all the truth. I want to be open to new things even if they don't necessarily jibe with what I think is true. Maybe I'll discover those new things are wrong. Good- then I know for myself. But maybe I'll discover an old truth long lost.

Even better!