Read
Trust in the Lord forever,
for the Lord God is an everlasting rock.
Isaiah 26:4
Reflect
My pastor shared a statistic with me that blew my mind. According to the 2026 American Worldview Inventory, only about 4 percent of adults in the United States have what researchers define as a biblical worldview — beliefs and behaviors that consistently align with biblical principles. Even among those the study defines as born-again Christians, the number is only about 12 percent. In other words, identifying as a Christian and actually allowing Scripture to shape the way we understand and live our lives can be two very different things.
It’s amazing that as a people we still pledge that we’re “one nation under God” and we have currency in our pockets that states, “In God We Trust.” But at the same time, we’ve allowed God to largely be eliminated or marginalized from much of public life. For many, it might be easier to trust in mankind — “In John Doe We Trust.” And while people might take an oath with their hand on the Bible, they are much less likely to believe that the words in that book are true or have any application in their lives.
This attitude has definitely filtered into many of our educational institutions, and especially into parts of our colleges and universities. Much of modern education operates within a framework in which natural or human explanations are treated as sufficient in themselves. God’s blessings can be explained away as natural phenomena or expressions of human achievement, and spiritual truth can be treated as something subjective rather than something that has authority over our lives.
Writer and theologian G.K. Chesterton, who penned the popular Father Brown series, is associated with the thought, often paraphrased as, “When men stop believing in God they don’t believe in nothing — they believe in anything.” We definitely see that tension throughout the world. It’s hard for many to believe in the virgin birth or that God created the world, yet it’s much easier to accept explanations of life and creation that leave no room for God at all. It’s hard to believe that God created the world, but it’s easy to believe that mankind has the power to heal it.
Scripture tells us that there is only one true and perfect God, revealed as Father, Son and Holy Spirit. I have complete respect for higher education, but even greater respect for divine revelation, which we experience through Scripture and see reflected in our minds, hearts and even in our environment.
God speaks His nature throughout creation, yet He also lovingly stands beyond it. To know Jesus Christ is to know ourselves and to love both self and others. To know Him is to trust in God and what He has said — not in John Doe, in John Doe’s professor, or even in what John Doe thinks he knows and believes. John Doe changes. His professors change. What mankind believes it knows changes. But the Lord God remains what Isaiah called Him: an everlasting rock.
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Reflection copyright © 2026 Doug DeBolt and Charles Fulton.
