Everyone – and I mean Everyone – is born with the resolute idea that they alone are the one and only unique repository of truth. This is a strange phenomenon imbued by us all.
Perhaps it is because we can’t read another person’s mind that we think we know it all. But nothing could be further from the truth. Each and every person is only able to perceive what they have learned from reading or from inborn human intuition, plus various degrees and variations of hard wiring. But since we are like snowflakes, each different than the other, our individual perceptions will all be different. Parental love and guidance, as well as setting an example for the child, also play a part.
In my case, neither parent was loving and instrumental in spiritual guidance, although my dad instilled fear in us and raised us not to lie and always be clean and obedient. Mom, although a decent person, seemed to have no religious convictions and was always clean and well-groomed as well. And so, it’s a wonder how God was able to infiltrate my life to the extent that He has. (My spiritual life began at the age of twenty-six, but I was always a clean, obedient child and well-read.) Books were my first love.
I always stepped in for the underdog and was taught right from wrong by my dad. He also taught me to walk like a man, “Throw your shoulders back and for God’s sake, don’t bounce when you walk, but stride purposely. Keep your hair combed, your fingernails clipped and clean, and always clean or shine your shoes – and never ever wear wrinkled clothes.”
All his admonitions served me well in life, and although he demanded my sister and I to go to church, he seldom did so himself. However, he watched Billy Graham specials on television. Still, he was never able to overcome his vices of wine, women, and song. I guess he tried to be good and even had Father McKeon (a Catholic priest) as a confident and friend, although he never seemed to have the need for repentance. And so it all comes down to this if we want to be pleasing to God and to have right standing with him.
The Bible says, “There is a way that seems right to man, but the end thereof is the way of death.” And so, as diligent as we are, we can never know absolute truth and please God until we find Him or He finds us. Even science is an unreliable tool for discovering absolute truth because it seems that almost everything man touches becomes flawed. An extreme example is that in our desire to win at war and not destroy the opponents’ goodies, we have invented Biological Warfare capable of killing people without destroying buildings, houses, infrastructures and land, and we stand ready to use that technology today. How foolish is that!
Also (as the recent election shows), we are all divided in various ways of thinking and interpreting life itself. Because of the way we perceive situations and objects with our varied and /or myopic points of view, we can be deluded or even fooled by what we observe with our five senses. The mid-term elections were a case in point. By that, I mean how can anyone vote for higher gas prices, higher food costs, inflation, and starvation, not to mention heating costs in the dead of winter? Not only that but the socialist indoctrination of our children by perverts in the public school system. Furthermore, with the prospect of never-ending vaccines – even for these same children and with lockdowns looming on the horizon, plus having to wear useless masks again – to me, reeks of Communism in its deadliest form.
A good way to experience this phenomenon is to go to an art museum and discuss the same painting with different individuals. Everyone, almost without exception, will see a painting differently. A vivid example of this happened to me when I was selling my stained-glass artwork at an outdoor festival. My pieces are your normal, everyday subjects, such as birds, wildlife, and landscapes. As I was talking to an interested customer, she pointed to the bottom of the waterfall depicted in the panel and exclaimed, “I love that little sailboat in the pool below the frothing waterfall. I’ll take it, but only for five hundred dollars.” On further examination, I was finally able to see the little sailboat bobbing around in the pool at the bottom of the waterfall among the waves. She saw what nobody else ever saw – including me, the maker.
Today, as I prepare to appear in a video as the Persian Magi character “Melchior” in a Christmas offering for our three-thousand-member church (First Presbyterian Church of Bonita Springs, Florida), I find that the Wise Men of old (Magi) did a better job of seeking out truth than most “seekers” or “seers” of today who, “Thinking themselves to be wise, they became utter fools.”
God knows that only what He teaches is worthwhile in the larger scheme of things. Only God is the final arbiter of truth and wisdom. Without the laws and wisdom found in the Bible, the cultures of man can barely function as they should. But they instead find themselves becoming a flawed people, and often third-world countries desperate for food, devoid of reason, with only animalistic instincts to guide them. Drug addicts, alcoholics, and suicidal people are the results of faulty thinking and making bad decisions. The best decision a man can make is to follow God’s teachings, which are found only in the Bible.
The Word of God always turns out to be true, no matter who questions it. In The Holy Bible, the TEN COMMANDMENTS are a great example of good laws that keep people in line and still able to enjoy life to its fullest. Deuteronomy is written to expand on these truths in greater detail. Much of the rest is written for world history and how God deals with those who defy him deliberately.
The New Testament agrees with all that was written previously in the Old Testament. When Jesus came, He taught us from Holy Scripture and never deviated from it. He taught us, showed us our inclinations to do wrong, and healed us.
The Holy Spirit was given to us followers upon His death on the cross to help keep us in line, instruct, and comfort us in our trials and tribulations, not by outward manifestations or false piety but by a quiet and content spirit imbued by internal peace and hope.
YBIC
Jim Towers
You can write me at jt.filmmaker@yahoo.com or visit my website at