I see all those voices out there promoting their insight, their experience, their knowledge in living color, chalking up another successful day in pictures. All this confidence and glitter, and the older I get, the more I realize that I have nothing to add to this sea of information and achievement. As the Wise Preacher once said, “What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun.” (Ecclesiastes 1:9) But maybe it is too easy to grow silent under the babel of the big wide world, assume that only the newest and brightest has the right to be heard.
Someone reminded me this week that Truth doesn’t get old, does not lose its value just because it has already been said a million times. The more true it is, the more it bears repeating, and in its consistent Light we are changed into better people: more effective parents, more loyal spouses, better friends, wiser decision-makers, harder workers. Not because we are listening to the right research or the most important influencers, but because the source of that age-old Truth is above all the clamor, stands apart as the Source of life itself. The old prophet is worth quoting: “All people are like grass, and all their glory is like the flowers of the field; the grass withers and the flowers fall, but the word of the Lord endures forever.” (1 Peter 1:24-25)
Don’t we think the Maker should get the first word on what makes us beautiful or what makes our lives worth something? I can read all the resources out there from everyone who knows what they are doing, and learn much from them, but I find that there is only one place to turn when it comes to life-change. And that is what I need, most of all. I need more patience and more kindness for others. I need to be able to forgive and to heal from the hurts of this life. I need humility, and generosity, and hope, and a thousand other character qualities that have nothing to do with information and everything to do with transformation from the inside-out. Like the Church-Planter says, “I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship. Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—His good, pleasing and perfect will.” (Romans 12:1-2) It’s not about getting the right life according to the experts. It’s about getting the right heart that knows what real life is: an everlasting life following the One Who matters most.
So maybe you don’t have to be an expert or an influencer to have something worthwhile to say. You just have to know the Truth and be humble enough, brave enough, to keep saying it. In every way you can, to whomever has ears to hear, over and over on repeat. Let God’s wisdom prove its own influence on every situation.
~~~~~~~
It’s not that we need a new truth or a different truth or different hacks. We need the same truths over and over in whatever the new circumstance is that God has given us.
Laura Jensen
~~~~~~~
For the Lord gives wisdom; from His mouth come knowledge and understanding. He holds success in store for the upright, He is a shield to those whose walk is blameless, for He guards the course of the just and protects the way of His faithful ones.
Proverbs 2:6-8