Reality, What a Concept

The dictionary has trouble with the word. "Reality," they tell me, is "the quality or state of being real." What is "reality"? Well, there is a problem with humans. We get confused. We tell lies. We believe lies. We are mistaken. We are wrong. We are misled. All of this is indicated in the term, "reality." That is, there are our perceptions, and then there is reality -- what is real, actual, true. Reality, then, is that which corresponds to what is actual as opposed to our own perceptions, imaginations, or ideas.

This can be a puzzling concept. Surely what we see, hear, feel, and think are real. Surely we know what's true. The Bible disagrees. God's Word says, "The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it?" (Jer 17:9). God's Word says, "The god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God" (2 Cor 4:4). God's Word says, "Whoever hates his brother is in the darkness and walks in the darkness, and does not know where he is going, because the darkness has blinded his eyes" (1 John 2:11). And so on. Scripture says that sin rots the brain (Rom 1:28), so it makes sense that we would be mistaken on occasion about what is real.

That's why it is absolutely vital that we measure reality by a standard rather than by our perceptions. We like to use things like opinions, science, experience, and the like as if these cannot be in error and then apply it as the standard by which we determine reality. I would argue that we should apply a standard of which we are not the source as the means of determining reality. That's why I try, whenever I can, to apply Scripture as my measure. Sometimes it shows that I understood what was real. Sometimes it tells me my perceptions were faulty. Sometimes those perceptions have been completely off. So when God's Word tells me, clearly and repeatedly, that something is true and real, I am willing to let go of ideas and values I have that contradict it in favor of embracing reality. Rather than letting my perceptions of what's real determine what is true, I'll prefer to let God do it.