Thursday, January 26, 2017

Alternative Facts and a World of Darkness




The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; those who dwelt in a land of deep darkness, on them has light shone. You have multiplied the nation; you have increased its joy; they rejoice before you as with joy at the harvest, as they are glad when they divide the spoil. Isaiah 9:2-3

We haven’t even finished the first month of 2017 and we already have a new submission for the Oxford English Dictionary: alternative facts. I have heard of alternative opinions, alternative perspectives, and even alternative music, but I was always taught that opinions are opinions and facts are facts.

So it has come to this. An Orwellian world of alternative facts that tells us “It’s all good!” 


An if-it’s-on-the-internet-it must-be-true mindset.

While I could probably be talking about the current political situation, I am instead led to thinking about the world of deep darkness mentioned in this verse from Isaiah. It is a world that attacks us from all sides; world that tries to recruit us into an often manufactured struggle; a world that survives by passing off deception as truth. It is not my world. We are truly strangers living in a strange land.

The strange world we live in feels more peculiar than unfamiliar. This world does not match the values or beliefs of children of God. Perhaps we feel we are the peculiar ones. We dare not seek the light of truth from the world in which we live. We walk in darkness and are in need of a light. 

The LORD is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear? The LORD is the stronghold of my life; of whom shall I be afraid? Psalm 27:1

How wonderful it is, how encouraging, how hopeful, to know we have a beacon of truth shining in amidst the swirl of alternate facts. We have a God who knows the ways of man because He created us. He loves us and has redeemed us through the blood of Jesus and His Spirit lives in our heart to strengthen our faith.

You have said, “Seek my face.” My heart says to you, “Your face, LORD, do I seek.” Psalm 27:8

This is our grace in a world that demands adherence to the law of untruth.





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