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Blog
Information
December 7, 2024
Information
I was born quite a few years ago in the industrial age. Some say we now live in the information age. It is not that there is no industry now, or that there was no information before – but information has become our common currency. It is interesting that we don’t know quite what information is, or how it works.
When I drive to Starbucks in the morning for coffee, I at times inform my group of buddies that it’s going to a bad day based on information that I just received. If the stoplights at Main and Commerce, and then Main and Liberty, and then Main and Huron, and then General Motors and Milford Road – if they are all red and cause me stop all those times, I can deduce from that information that it is going to be a bad day.
Good information is supposed to contribute to the truth of the reality in which we live. However people may disagree with one another, – and they certainly do disagree – but, there is really only one reality.
So let me just say that my friends at Starbucks know full well that I am mocking when I say that I can tell the dispostion of the day ahead by the redness of a series of stoplights. Information it is, but not good information. It is not information that contributes to an accurate understanding of reality any more than a horoscope. I am actually making fun of such absurd “knowledge” with the hope that they might think about where to find “good” knowledge.
To find information about reality, we must consult a trusted source. I believe in the providence of God, but I am not sure that God cares much about whether I have to stop at too many stoplights in my quest for that first cup of coffee. I don’t believe those lights are synced in any intelligent way – they are not “smart” lights; they are “dumb” lights. And they are in no way a source of information that should be trusted. So where do we go to find trusted information?
If you trust the information that shows up in the first few entries on your computer screen, you are a foolish person. The algorithms are designed to feed you first what they have deemed you most want to read; that with which you are most likely to agree. If you trust a particular talking head you have never met on a news/entertainment show, you are foolish, because you have no means of detecting the character or motivation of that person who is talking other than knowing that they are being paid a boatload of money to hang on to market share. They don’t know you as George or Phyllis. They know you only as market share.
We suppose that we get our “good” information from those we trust. But whom do we trust? That is the question, and that is the problem. We know that the world is filled with liars, but we think we have the tools to tell the liars from the truth-tellers. On what basis? Because they sound confident? One might more likely find the truth in someone who is humble. But that doesn’t sell.
Many people have heard of Jesus, but few trust Him. Why? Because they already have other networks of experts they trust. When the disciples chose to trust Jesus instead of the chief priests, it is that they found Jesus to speak into their hearts with a sincerity and truth that they could not escape. This also brought the result that they found the chief priests to be disappointing, even self-serving.
If information is to help us understand what reality truly is, then Jesus is the One best able to help us in that regard. He will stand in judgment of all other competing and contrary information. He will steer us away from liars, unless it is that we, despite our professions of faith, actually trust the liars more than we trust Jesus. If that is the case, I don’t know which reality you might think you are living in, but it is not real, and you are not prepared for what comes next.
I’m writing this article while parked a red light. It just turned green, so we can go now, and it is a good day, not because the light is green, but because Jesus is alive, and He is the King of the true reality that should matter to everyone. It is called the Kingdom of God.
- “Prayer is a sincere, sensible, affectionate pouring out of the heart and soul to God, through Christ, with the strength and assistance of the Holy Spirit, for such things as God has promised, or according to the Word, for the good of the church, with submission, in faith, to the will of God.” - John Bunyan
