“The tendency for us to exchange the truth of God for a lie continually confronts each person. We have a startling capacity for self-deception.” –Chris Blumhofer
I tried doing that thing where you pray on your knees. I thought it would come out more intentional and more spiritual that way. But my feet fell asleep and so I prayed sitting criss-cross applesauce on the floor.
After apologizing for not being the girl who prayed on her knees, God asked me what was wrong.
“I’m lonely.”
“I have given you people. I’ve given you CCW, supporting parents, friends who love you.”
“But you know I’m a dreamer, God. Why would you allow me to dream if you knew none of it would come true? Why would you allow these desires in my heart if they were not going to come to pass?”
“But what about Hillsong?”
I got quiet.
“That was your dream, and I gave it to you.”
I wiped a tear from my eye and turned my head to the side, away from Him. I didn’t want Him to hear what I was about to say.
“But you weren’t there.”
And in those four words, God revealed what He was trying to say to me through Hosea.
Nothing is real without Him.
My sin in this season is that I have continued to serve God without truth. If God is truth, and I have been serving truth with lies, then who, really, have I been serving?
My own gods. I become an idolatress when I reject truth.
Hosea tells God’s people this. He says:
“Hear the word of the LORD, people of Israel, for the LORD has a case against the inhabitants of the land: There is no truth, no faithful love, and no knowledge of God in the land!”
They serve God with no truth. They serve God with no knowledge of Him.
“Because you rejected knowledge, I also reject you as my priests.”
This is not a fluke happening in the Bible. The prophet Jeremiah also speaks of the dangers of serving God without knowledge or acceptance of truth. God tells him that there is no truth in the land.
“My people are fools; they do not know me. They are senseless children; they have no understanding.”
The vision Jeremiah sees after God tells him this is one of void. The things that were once real begin to disappear.
“I looked at the earth, and it was formless and empty; and at the heavens and their light was gone. I looked at the mountains; and they were quaking and the hills were swaying. I looked, and there were no people; every bird in the sky had flown away. I looked, and the fruitful land was a desert; all its towns lay in ruins before the Lord, before his fierce anger.”
Nothing is real without Him.
But God tells Jeremiah that if he can find “but one person who deals honestly and seeks the truth, I will forgive this city.”
A question that has been asked at every Bible study this summer has been “are you listening to the prophets?”
I ask you this question one last time. Are you listening?
Not only to the prophets that we may have in our lives (though yes, lend your ear to them), but also to the prophets that are written in the book of Truth.
When Hosea says “He will heal us,” are you listening?
When Isaiah says “You will keep in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on You, because he trusts in You,” are you listening?
When Jeremiah says “I will listen to you. You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart. I will be found by you,” are you listening?
When Joshua says “You know with all your heart and soul that not one of all the good promises the Lord your God gave you has failed,” are you listening?
When David says “As far as the east is from the west, so far has He removed our transgressions from us,” are you listening?
When John says “The Lamb at the center of the throne will be their shepherd, and will guide them to springs of the water of life,” are you listening?
Are we a community that when God sheds his light upon us, He sees no truth, no faithful love, and no knowledge of God?
Or are we a community who listens? Are we a community who seeks Truth?
If we are to love, we must seek Truth, for “love rejoices in Truth.”
It is God’s prevenient grace that leads us to the understanding that the emptiness we’ve been feeling is not for lack of what God could have given us.
It is a lack of Truth.
Last spring, I did a mission trip with my dad and his church to help those who lost their homes in Hurricane Sandy. The trip happened two years after the storm to tell them that “God has not forgotten you.”
During one of our outreaches, a lady walked toward us. We smiled and informed her that we had free food, clothes, and toiletry items if she wanted any.
She looked at the table that had brass crosses made by a blacksmith at our church. She picked one up and with a tear in her eye, she kissed it.
“I don’t want anything. I just want this.”
May we remember this woman who when she had little, wanted Jesus above all else. May we seek truth, and know what is real.
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