Bible Studies

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Learning to trust is a lifelong road. Every day we walk out on the ice and wonder if it will hold us up. We would certainly trust God if we could listen to Him every day like Adam in the garden but it seems his voice is hard to hear and we have become a little deaf. We look to others with good reputation for values but the decision of who or what to trust always rests with our own judgement. We might be better off if Buddha or daVinci, or Aristotle or Jesus could make our decisions for us; but the best we can do is try to figure what they might do in our situation and go from there. Trust must begin within ourselves, but we know from experience that our judgement is sometimes flawed. We must examine our own selves and see beyond the flaw.

Everyone comes up with their own version of reality based on what they learn and what they call their own truth. We try to convince ourselves that we are open and are still trying to find the REAL TRUTH, but we're not. Why? Because we don't trust ourselves, and for good reason: we are liars and we know it. We lie all the time to ourselves and to each other. We lie about how we look, about how we feel, about what we think, and most of all we lie ALL THE TIME about what we know. If you would call a lion an animal with courage, and an elephant an animal with strength; what would you call a human? It's the animal that lies! We lie out of habit, even when the truth would serve us better.

And how can we begin to trust ourselves? We must get to the heart of the lie that is deep within us and set it straight before anything else can be done. Now this is a killer, but the fact is we lie every time we use the word 'I'. That's right, we don't have the foggiest notion of who or what we are. We don't know what our potential is, we don't know what we are supposed to be doing here, we don't really know where 'here' actually is, we don't know how all the stuff that happens to us influences us, we don't know what is going on in our own bodies, and we don't know what is going on in our heads.

What humans do have is a pitiful number of years to accumulate some knowledge, a brain that can memorize vast amounts of information and collate it to whatever conditions we ask of it; and at least TEN THOUSAND YEARS of history that has been remembered in myths and stories, in oral, written, sculpted, painted, carved or otherwise handed down form. THAT is who we are. We are everything that has ever happened to anyone, and we are everyone who is doing anything to anyone else right now. It is a great freedom and carries much power for we are Abraham and Christ and Muhammed; but it is also a terrible burden for we are also the barbarians and Hitler and Pol Pot, killing and hurting each other all over the globe at this very moment. If it weren't for the prayers that waft heavenward from the mouths of saints and your daughter at bedtime, we would all be in big trouble.

All of history is in every one of us right now, and the only question we can ask is, What are we going to do next? Right now, this very moment? Get all hissy because somebody didn't treat us right? Maintain that grudge? I have one for you: clear your mind of everything for a moment, then smile for no particular reason. If you were to drop dead right after, your contribution would be positive and greatly appreciated.

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