“God did this so that, by two unchangeable things in which it is impossible for God to lie, we who have fled to take hold of the hope set before us may be greatly encouraged.” Hebrews 6:18
Because we depend so much on God’s revealed word for our knowledge of Him, it is essential that we trust Him.
This promise from Hebrews, then, is a comforting one. God cannot and will not lie. We can trust what He tells us.
Yet, God has not revealed Himself in an easy to follow owner’s manual. We can be sure that what He has given us is true, but it is occasionally hard to know what to do with truth or even what that truth actually is. People can agree that the Bible is God’s word — that the words in it are not lies — and disagree about what His word is saying.
I’ve been thinking about this as my daughter gets older and learns more of the Bible. I treasure her childlike faith in the stories of the Bible, but it’s sometimes unclear to me whether or not she thinks of the stories she hears as historically truthful; truthful in the way that, say, a parable is truthful; or something neither true nor false (i.e. the categories don’t occur to her).
Over the past three months, I know she’s developing a greater sense of truth and falsity because I’ve started using the pair to have conversations with her. In fact, on the way home from school yesterday, she asked for a game of true/false.
Me: True or false: you ate your lunch.
Her: True. I ate all my cheese, all my cheese crackers, all my strawberries, and one of my pickles.
Me: True or false: you actually slept during your nap.
Her: False. I laid down and closed my eyes. I didn’t sleep
Me: True or false: you’re chewing your Kleenux right now.
Her (quickly removing Kleenux from her mouth): False.
Me: Really?
Her: Truish.
For some reason, she seems more willing to share about her day if I give her a statement and she simply has to say whether it’s true or false.
As the final exchange shows, she also knows the difference between a truth, a half-truth, and a total lie. No, the entire Kleenux was no longer in her mouth. Yes, at least some of it was still in her mouth. Yes, she knew that at no point should the Kleenux have been in her mouth.
I want her to know that God hears her and wants her to tell Him the truth although unlike me, God already knows the truth about whatever she’ll tell Him.
And I want her to be willing to listen to what God says — in His word and through His spirit — and believe that what He says is true.
I’ve had the song “Not In a Hurry” by United Front on repeat for the entire semester, and while its primary emphasis is on patience, it also focuses on listening to God.
Me: True or false: I want to hear God, to believe what He says, to live that truth out for my family, and to see my daughter begin to live His truth out in her own life.
Me: True.
Because we depend so much on God’s revealed word for our knowledge of Him, it is essential that we trust Him.
This promise from Hebrews, then, is a comforting one. God cannot and will not lie. We can trust what He tells us.
Yet, God has not revealed Himself in an easy to follow owner’s manual. We can be sure that what He has given us is true, but it is occasionally hard to know what to do with truth or even what that truth actually is. People can agree that the Bible is God’s word — that the words in it are not lies — and disagree about what His word is saying.
I’ve been thinking about this as my daughter gets older and learns more of the Bible. I treasure her childlike faith in the stories of the Bible, but it’s sometimes unclear to me whether or not she thinks of the stories she hears as historically truthful; truthful in the way that, say, a parable is truthful; or something neither true nor false (i.e. the categories don’t occur to her).
Over the past three months, I know she’s developing a greater sense of truth and falsity because I’ve started using the pair to have conversations with her. In fact, on the way home from school yesterday, she asked for a game of true/false.
Me: True or false: you ate your lunch.
Her: True. I ate all my cheese, all my cheese crackers, all my strawberries, and one of my pickles.
Me: True or false: you actually slept during your nap.
Her: False. I laid down and closed my eyes. I didn’t sleep
Me: True or false: you’re chewing your Kleenux right now.
Her (quickly removing Kleenux from her mouth): False.
Me: Really?
Her: Truish.
For some reason, she seems more willing to share about her day if I give her a statement and she simply has to say whether it’s true or false.
As the final exchange shows, she also knows the difference between a truth, a half-truth, and a total lie. No, the entire Kleenux was no longer in her mouth. Yes, at least some of it was still in her mouth. Yes, she knew that at no point should the Kleenux have been in her mouth.
I want her to know that God hears her and wants her to tell Him the truth although unlike me, God already knows the truth about whatever she’ll tell Him.
And I want her to be willing to listen to what God says — in His word and through His spirit — and believe that what He says is true.
I’ve had the song “Not In a Hurry” by United Front on repeat for the entire semester, and while its primary emphasis is on patience, it also focuses on listening to God.
Me: True or false: I want to hear God, to believe what He says, to live that truth out for my family, and to see my daughter begin to live His truth out in her own life.
Me: True.