ENJOYING DEPRESSING LIES?

It’s the lies that depress me.

After the political conventions, I was disheartened with the lies and the millions who choose to believe them and then go vote. I say “choose” because as Malcolm Muggeridge wrote. “People do not believe lies just because they are plausibly presented, but because they want to.”

And why do people want to believe lies? Because they are telling us what we want to hear. “No lie ever works unless someone is willing to believe it. People often prefer lies over truth if they uphold cherished self-images… Audience self-flattery, both overt and, more often, implied, is the foundation stone of effective commercial communication. Above all else, audiences must be told what they wish to hear about themselves.” [Wilson Bryan Key PH.D. “The Age of Manipulation.”]

Anyway, I was depressed, wondering why God allows this darkness to go on. So I got quiet and asked the Lord why. Then I read these words from Thomas Traherne written in the 17th century, “All things are well; I only, and the sons of men about me, are disordered. Nevertheless could I be what I ought, their very disorders would be my enjoyments.”

Really? I knew the entire universe obeyed God and the only creatures that didn’t were us! But here is Traherne saying if he was the man he should be, he would enjoy man’s “disorders.”

I thought, “Come on, Thomas, Really? This is absurd! But I read on…
“For all things work together for good to them that love God… And not only their enjoyments, but their very errors and distractions increasing my happiness.” So he is saying that the disorders (including, I assume, the lies that were depressing me) can make us happy, because he will turn them around for good.

OK, I can buy that, I guess, but how does this work?

The Scriptures “taught me that me that those fashions and tinseled vanities, which you and I despise… can manifest the wisdom of God. For it becomes His goodness to make all things treasures: and His Power is able to bring light out of darkness, and good out of evil.”

So the answer is that God can bring light out of the darkness of man’s vanities, and if I have the wisdom of God, I can see what he is doing by allowing these “disorders.”

So I asked for wisdom to understand and here’s what I saw: God is allowing the lies and people’s belief of them to bring them to the end of themselves. So in the end, they can see the foolishness of trusting in man (governments) for their happiness and provision, and turn to the real Source – God himself.

I was depressed because I was short-sighted. I was not looking at the end. When Israel was loving lies, God told them to consider the end. “A horrible and shocking thing has happened in the land: The prophets prophesy lies, the priests rule by their own authority, and my people love it this way. But what will you do in the end?” (Jer 5:30-31NIV)

So it appears that all this is in God’s plan. He is letting history play out to the end so people can find out for themselves, “that wasn’t it,” so they can see “He is it!” This is what he did for me and for all of us and others deserve to see for themselves the folly of the path they are on. It is a painful process, to be sure, but the good news is it all leads back to God. In the meantime, as the chaos gets worse, we can still trust God to take care of us, and continue in the light, live in peace and enjoy God.

He will take care of us even if America falls. If man’s flashlights go out, God will shine like the sun in the darkness. As English journalist Malcolm Muggeridge looked out on the decline of the British Empire, he saw the brightness of Christ in the end.

“Nor need we despair to be living at a time when we have lost an Empire on which the sun never set, and acquired a commonwealth on which it never rises. It is in the breakdown of power that we may discern it’s true nature, and when power seems strong and firm that we are most liable to be taken in and suppose that it can really be used to enhance human freedom and well-being, forgetful that Jesus is the prophet of the “loser’s” camp, not the “winner’s,” and proclaimed that the first will be last and the last first, that the weak are the strong, that the fools are the wise. Let us then as Christians rejoice that we see all around us on every hand the decay of the institutions and instruments of power, intimations of empires falling to pieces, money in total disarray, dictators and parliaments alike nonplused by the confusion and conflicts which encompass them. For it is precisely when every hope has been explored and found wanting, when every possibility of help from earthly sources has been sought and is not forthcoming, when every resource this world offers, has been explored to no effect, when in the shivering cold the last log has been thrown on the fire and in the gathering darkness every glimmer of light has finally flickered out – it is then that Christ’s hand reaches out, sure and firm, that Christ’s words bring their inexpressible comfort, that His light shines brightest, abolishing the darkness forever. So finding in everything only deception and nothingness the soul is constrained to have recourse to God Himself and to rest content with Him.” (“Christ and the Media.”)