Watching the Pro-Palestinian/Anti-Israel protests on
college campuses, I found it both interesting and highly disturbing how little
these protesters actually know about the Middle East in general and the long-standing
conflict between Jews and Palestinians in particular. But I know better than to go down that rabbit
hole, so this blog post is not about the Middle East mess. Rather it is about how we should think about our
beliefs.
I’ve made a lot of mistakes in my life. Thankfully and by the grace of God, I’ve
learned from them. Most importantly, I’ve
learned to ask the hard questions and seek the hard answers. This is not an easy thing to do. Human nature is more interested in fruit that looks
good and tastes even better. Consequences
be damned. But eventually, some of us
learn that consequences will not be damned and certainly cannot be ignored.
Those life lessons have led me to ask these hard questions:
_Is what I believe actually true and am I on the right
path?
_Why do I believe it?
_If I am on the right path, what does it mean for how I live
my life?
When I look at what’s going on in the world today, I see
people asking similar questions but getting the wrong answers. And I think that pretty much sums up the craziness
we’re witnessing. People believe something
because it just “feels” right, or someone has told them it’s right or they just
need to believe it for selfish reasons. The
American Civil War is a classic example. Southerners believed things about slavery, black
people and states’ rights that were just wrong.
But they certainly believed they were right and went to war to prove it.
History is essentially about groups of people thinking
they are right and their opponents are wrong.
In most cases there is right and wrong on both sides of the argument. Unfortunately, those who are mostly right don’t
always win the argument. Sometimes those
who are mostly wrong win…at least for a while.
And even when those who are mostly right end up winning, it’s not likely
to be a “win-win” for everybody. Life is
hard and it’s also short. No one gets everything
right all of the time. The best we can
hope for is that we get most of it right for as many of us as possible for as
long as possible.
“Knowing what’s right doesn’t mean much unless you do what’s
right.” – Theodore Roosevelt
