Read
“Do not call conspiracy all that this people calls conspiracy, and do not fear what they fear, nor be in dread.”
Isaiah 8:12
Reflect
My stepdad has always said that, “It’s not what people will believe, it’s what won’t they believe?” Think about how many outlandish things you’ve heard about that some people have latched onto. There are things that most people believe, so much so that the opposite seems impossible. Yet there are people who still believe that that opposite is real:
- The Earth is flat.
- The moon landing was faked.
- The Holocaust never happened.
- The 9/11 attacks were an inside job.
Most of us will look at these items and say, “People still believe that?” But there are some people for whom those statements are absolute. And of course, knowing that there are people who believe something that on the surface seems to be outlandish is something new, right?
Uh, not really. On August 25, 1835, the New York Sun began to run a series of articles about a civilization of beings that was living on the Moon. Like all great lies, they had a kernel of truth because the stories were attributed to world-renowned astronomer Sir John Herschel. Supposedly, Sir John had discovered the presence of a lot of animal life on the Moon, including bison, unicorns and bat-winged humanoids. These creatures wandered in forests and along the beach on the Moon’s oceans.
Readers were enthralled. Word about the discovery spread like a brushfire, so much so that the Sun‘s circulation exploded. It took about three weeks until the Sun finally admitted that the whole thing had been a hoax, and you’d think that there would have been an enormous backlash. But there wasn’t. Readers largely took it in stride, and the Sun didn’t lose many readers after the revelation. In fact, the claims made by what’s now known as the Great Moon Hoax about creatures on the moon were so thoroughly believed by some that Sir John continued to be asked about his supposed discovery years after the fact. (He was not amused.)
There are people who say that the tenets of Christianity are too crazy to be believed. We serve a God we cannot see, and He sent His Son to Earth to live and die as one of us. After Jesus’ death, He was raised from the dead, and He ascended to Heaven, where He awaits us. And He left His Holy Spirit behind to give us power for living. I understand why that’s hard for many people to accept, even though many of those same people have no trouble believing in a cataclysmic explosion at the beginning of time that led to a primordial ooze from which all life crawled and evolved. There’s no physical proof of a God, but there’s no real proof for a big bang theory either. At some level, you’ve got to take either one on faith. (And I’m not saying these are either-or; I have friends who definitely believe in God, and who believe he created the Earth through a big bang.)
Faith is an amazing thing. I can’t imagine living life without it. It seems oppressive to me to have to go through each day believing only in what I can see and touch. So on the one hand, I cannot grasp why people insist on a flat Earth or that millions of Jews did not die in the Holocaust. Those beliefs lead nowhere and seem to only serve as argument starters, because there’s hard evidence to the contrary. But on the other hand, I also cannot ultimately grasp why people don’t embrace the reality of a loving God and Savior. I’ve felt their presence, and I know how my life has been changed for the better by having a relationship with them. Anything that leads you away from that belief is the worst kind of “fake news.”
I hope that today you already have an even better relationship with the Lord than I do. But if you’re struggling with believing in the existence and presence of a God who loves you, do me a favor and say a quick prayer. Just ask God to make himself real to you, and give me the chance to do just that. I think you’ll find that the Lord is far from a conspiracy and is the most real thing you could ever experience.
Reflection copyright © 2021 Doug DeBolt.
