“Before the mountains were brought forth or ever you had formed the earth and the world, from everlasting to everlasting you are God.”
Psalm 90:2
I often wish I were in more control than I am. As humans, we want to be in control. We want to be the masters of our destinies.
In general, we think too highly of ourselves. Some of us want to accomplish great things. Others don’t want to be controlled or restricted by anyone else.
We forget our place.
Repeatedly forgetting our place is a profoundly human difficulty. That was the essence of the sin in the Garden of Eden, seeking to be like God. It was the essence of the sin at Babel. It is often at the core of what makes us go astray.
We want control, autonomy, and recognition. As my mom would say, we get too big for our britches.
We humans can and have done amazing things. We went to the moon; we split the atom. We have done amazing things, or maybe we have done things that are amazing for beings as limited as we are.
Humans have climbed Mount Everest, but we did not create the mountain. We mapped the genome, but we did not create it.
Psalm 90 reminds us that God created the mountains and the entire Earth. But He is not God because of those things. He was God long before those things came into existence and will be long after they fade from memory.
God is not God because He did great things. He was able to do these great things because He is God. And He can do so much more.
From everlasting to everlasting, He is God. In the brief span of our lives, some will accomplish great things. But those things pale in comparison to the greatness of God.
One of the first steps of faith and of living a faithful life is realizing just how small our britches truly are.g, He is God. In the brief span of our lives, some will accomplish great things. But those things pale in comparison to the greatness of God.
One of the first steps of faith and of living a faithful life is realizing just how small our britches truly are.
A Quote to Consider
“Education must enable one to sift and weigh evidence, to discern the true from the false, the real from the unreal, and the facts from the fiction.”
-Martin Luther King Jr.
Discerning fact from fiction and the true from the false is becoming increasingly difficult.
I cannot help but think of an incredibly sad conversation I recently had with a lifelong friend. In many ways, we could not agree on basic facts, words’ definitions, or even a shared understanding of reality.
It can be hard to see a way forward. For so long, education has prioritized STEM fields over the humanities. The social sciences, while not as elevated as STEM in our culture, tend to also be seen as superior, or at least far more pragmatic than the humanities, or heaven forbid the arts.
But of what use are the sciences if we cannot discern what is real and true? Does scientific scholarship even mean anything if facts are based on ideological perspectives?
There is no doubt that the humanities opened the door to these challenges. But epistemological debates have given way to the view that reality is a function of power.
There is a famous quote, attributed to Karl Rove, from 2004, which reads in part, “People like you are still living in what we call the reality-based community. You believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality. That’s not the way the world really works anymore. We’re an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality.”
MLK Jr. had a very different vision. He believed that truth, not just power, mattered. Reality and facts are not subject to the whims of powerful actors but can be discerned by weighing evidence.
Education is not just about learning information; it is about enabling us to sift the evidence to discern what is real, what is true, and what is, in fact, factual, rather than waiving our agency over to the actions of the powerful who believe they create reality and are not subject to it.
Prayer
Lord,
You are God eternal. Forgive us when we grasp for control and power. Give us the humility to recognize our limits, the wisdom to discern what is true, and the faith to trust You when we feel out of control. Teach us to seek truth rather than power as we live faithfully before You.
Amen.
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