Who're You Gonna Believe?

The story goes that a wife comes home and catches her husband in an embrace with his secretary. She's outraged, but he defends himself. "It's not what you think! There's nothing going on here. Who are you gonna believe -- me or your eyes?"

A joke, sure, but there is something more underneath. On the serious side, there is a question. How reliable are your eyes? Or your perceptions? Or you comprehensions? We assume at the outset that what we see, for instance, is real. Today, of course, with deep fakes and photoshop that's just no longer a tenable position. It's just too easy to deceive your eyes. And from there deceit only gets easier. Like foley artists. A foley artist has the job of making sound effects for movies. Now, a lot of what they need to make can't be made normally. There is no way to simply record the sound of a hyperdrive on a starship, for instance. Just a silly example. So they find creative ways to fool your ears. And they're impressively good at it. Who are you going to believe -- your ears or reality?

It isn't outlandish, then, to suggest that your senses can be wrong. Move beyond that. How about your memory? Or your knowledge? Are you really certain that what you think you know is true? But we all operate on the assumption that all of this is fairly reliable and we move along. And that's mostly fine.

So what do we do when God steps in? How can we respond when Scripture challenges our current ideas? What's the right way to go when we've always seen it "this way" and it looks unavoidably as if God's word is saying it's "that way"? "It's not what you think," the Bible seems to say. "Who are you gonna believe -- God or your perceptions?"

I think it's a valid question. I think it's an important question. And I'm concerned that too many who call themselves believers would choose "me" over God. Without regard to Scripture or God's character or anything else that might contradict their own positions. After all, aren't my eyes more reliable than His word? (Hint: The answer is a loud "No!")