I caught myself saying something I couldn’t believe I said to myself. It concerned the truth – as I was trying to make plans for next week. I never thought I’d ever say it. Maybe it’s a sign of the times? It certainly a sign of my fallen, sin filled ways. I sat at my desk after opening the window to my study at the school. It was cooler today, and a welcome break from the heat we’ve been experiencing earlier in the week – though, in Springfield, IL, it’s not the heat, it’s the humidity. I decided to sit down and check the weather. I’ve recently retaken up golfing, so I was going to look at the weather for Tuesday – my day off.

I opened one of my weather apps on my phone – my usual go to, AccuWeather. As I looked at the future forecast for this coming Tuesday, I saw that the conditions were not in my favor. High of 89 degrees. Partly sunny; warm and humid. Yuck, warm and humid. I’m originally from Southern California, more specifically the high desert. It would get hot, yes, but it was a dry heat. After living in the Midwest I’ve discovered how true that is.

It was next that I caught myself off guard – a feet not easy in and of itself for most people I would think. I looked at myself square in the eyes and said to myself, “Let’s check the Weather.com app, maybe it will give me the forecast I want to hear.” What? “The forecast I want to hear?” How absurd is that? I mean, I know the two weather services can have different stats concerning said weather, but they aren’t so different to warrant what I just said.

What did I do though, even after catching myself with such a stupid, idiotic remark? I STILL CHECKED THE DAMN APP. Ya, it said pretty much the same thing. So catching my breath after such stupidity, I went theologian on my ass. “What did you expect? There is only one truth.”

What I said and did reminded me an awful lot how all of us do this with the Word, even with those who call themselves faithful Christians. We look for the truth of reality, and when we find it and don’t like it, we move onto the next source – that is, even if we looked at and in the real truth, Christ, in the first place. It’s probably a news channel or Facebook, which are bad bedfellows. We look for the truth in ourselves or in other fallen human beings. We look to the government or – worst of all – celebrities. We look to those who are wise to the world, who are far too often uneducated in any critical thinking. Hell, we don’t even go to our pastor. We look everywhere but where the absolute truth is: Christ, the Word made flesh.

To read and hear the Good Book and the Word is to dive into the mind and will of God for you. You are actually reading and receiving Christ. It is during the preaching of this Word – this is my prayer at least – that you listen with your ear the harsh reality of the Law, and the sweet sounds of the Gospel, which sets us free in body, mind, and soul through the forgiveness of our sins and our justification before our Father.

I pray that you find comfort with the fact that you only need find the truth in one place and we need not have to look in more than one place. This takes a great deal of burden off of us. It takes away are pride, and brings healing to those we have sinned against, and to ourselves when we are sinned against. The truth heals. It frees to receive God’s love and to love all others. That’s what the Truth does. And thanks be to God for it.

131 A Song of Ascents. Of David.

¹  O Lord, my heart is not lifted up;

my eyes are not raised too high;

I do not occupy myself with things

too great and too marvelous for me.

²  But I have calmed and quieted my soul,

like a weaned child with its mother;

like a weaned child is my soul within me.

³  O Israel, hope in the Lord

from this time forth and forevermore.