Getting It Right

 

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