I was a kid who would read anything and everything. The most random things became my teachers. Ingredients, advertisements, random pieces of paper on a desk and especailly the backs of cereal boxes were my books during the rate times when there wasn’t an actual book in front of me. I hungered for information, the randomer the better. I deemed everything useful.

I mean, you never know when cereal box trivia could save your life. I mean, yeah, it could happen. Maybe.

Because of the variety of sources of information, I there are plenty of truths in my life that I believed were true even though I couldn't quite recall the source. Too many times to count, I would say I am certian of a fact about the world when I can't pinpoint where I heard it. It would just sound true. Surely, everyone knew it was true. Right? Obviously, this attitude can get one in trouble.

For instance, around 4th grade I was convinced--I mean CONVINCED--that the word "complicated" meant "easy." I had worked it out in my head that the opposite of "complex" was "complicated." This, shall we say, complicated things because I would correct others and refuse to be corrected myself. I held fast in my ignorance. I knew in my heart of hearts that "complicated" meant easy. Eventually I had to fess up to the fact that somehow I had gotten it completely wrong.

Too often we get caught up believening in a lie.

Again--also in fourth grade--I made a mistake by misunderstanding an Adventures in Odyssey episode. In the episode, someone said that "Manifest Destinity" was a name of an early American ship, so when asked what it meant in class I said the same wrong answer. I was so positive I got it correct, I was skeptical of the teacher's credintials in the area! It was only later that I found out that the person who said the the term Manifest Destinity wasn't giving the right answer and was called out on it. My selective memory blocked all that out so that I thought I was smarter than all the uncultured swine who didn't listen to Adventures in Odyssey.

These are silly examples but they illistrate the power of the human mind to be SO CERTIAN of things that are not true. As you've probably noticed if you've opened up your news feed or even dared to look out the window, there are a lot of people convinced that they are totally right and everyone else is totally wrong. As Christians, how do we deal with this mess?

I believe it's a Christian viture to do your homework. We have to recognize our own limitations. After all, we are to rely on God and not ourselves. We and our noggins fail too often, so we let God run the show.

Scripture mandates the renewing of our minds. Romans 12:2 says, "Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect." We RENEW our minds and TEST so that we can DISCERN God's plan. Critical thinking is an aspect of the transformation process. Critical thinking is a gift of God for our santification.

Also in 1 Thessalians 5:20-21, Paul writes "Do not despise prophecies, but test everything; hold fast what is good." It's a common verse to refer to doing apologetics, when it's actually propably about prophecy, yet you can still glean the truth that testing is important to figure out the truth. We test what we hear against the backdrop of what is true and good.

We have so much information being pumped into us on a day to day basis. Much of it is not true nor helpful. It's our responsiblity to sift through the mess and check sources. We are called to be truthtellers. We can witness to the world by being both correctable and not blindly accepting whatever comes our way.

It's not complicated (which means "difficult", by the way, not "easy"). Let's do our homework and be committed to telling the truth as much as we can.

Random Facts for Life,

Jake Doberenz