Someone is sabotaging your life. This isn’t a conspiracy theory; it’s a fact. There’s one specific person damaging your life more than anyone else—but you hardly ever see them.
Maybe while you’re brushing your teeth, your reflection reveals the culprit. But other than that, there might be only glimpses of the one making all the choices that determine your day, your week, your life. Maybe this is why you have so much trouble seeing the truth about yourself. You rarely even see you. Even so, if you don’t pursue a significant level of self-awareness, you will continue to make things difficult.
Knowing the truth about the world isn’t enough. You also have to have an accurate perception of yourself. It’s one thing to be blind to your surroundings (like the proverbial fish blind to the water), but if you also fail to see the truth about yourself, this is the ultimate lack of wisdom.
You might achieve some insight about the world, but the only way you can make things better is to contemplate the reality of your own condition. Otherwise your habits and sins will maintain control simply through momentum. Redirecting your life is going to take some focus and effort.
You need a good mirror. The Word of God casts a harsh but perfect reflection and once you have “looked intently at the perfect law,” you will have the perception you need to make some changes (James 1:23-25). The only difficulty will be if you have enough determination.
The Word of God sees beyond the surface. It is also like a sword that can reach as deep as your soul, where you find the “thoughts and intentions of the heart” (Hebrews 4:12). This is where the true you lives.
Since the Bible is your only source of solid truth, unless you use the insight found in its pages, navigating the most important challenges of life in the 21st Century will be impossible.
But with the Word, you can map out where you are and who you are. Jesus pinpoints your location as a Christian. “They are not of the world, just as I am not of the world” (John 17:16). If you’re a Christian, you live here but you belong there. You are “enrolled in heaven” (Hebrews 12:23). God even describes you as a foreigner (1 Peter 2:11). And to compromise this estrangement is to lose your connection with God. “Whoever wants to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God” (James 4:4). This separation from the world within the world is crucial.
If you’re an authentic Christian you will protect your perception—your ability to see your surroundings accurately in order to not lose the gift of sanctification. Seeing things as they really are is key.
There are numerous books available that bring our culture into focus. They present undeniable evidence that current technology has concerning side-effects. These books can provide some objectivity needed to see the reality of our circumstance. But any solid insight will come from the Bible. Scripture is your only fully reliable source of information.
This means the Bible the only way to have clarity about reality. Regardless of the time and place of your life, your first best move is to become a daily Bible reader. Ignore the experts who suggest the Word of God is anything less than the words of God.
The Bible contains God’s message to us and only He can provide the spiritual insight needed for an accurate perception of our existence. And obeying God’s commands always lead to improvement. Despite any complications that have come our way through our inventions, Scripture provides the means to interact with them wisely.
Secular research alone can make you slip into pessimism. Confronted with statistics and trends, it’s tempting to paint dystopias. Doom and gloom is easy. Bad news might motivate us, but pessimism mostly leads to paralysis. We end up doing nothing more than shaking our heads with a shrug.
There is another way to approach this. A simple but profound command is found in the small book of Haggai. “Consider your ways” (Haggai 1:5). Think about your life. Take a step back and look things over. What is your life like? Even the smallest step back can reveal the truth. “You have sown much, only to harvest little; you eat, but there is not enough to be satisfied; you drink, but there is not enough to become drunk; you put on clothing, but there is not enough for anyone to get warm; and the one who earns, earns wages to put into a money bag full of holes” (Haggai 1:6). It’s a familiar feeling. Life leaves lot to be desired.
Anyone who honestly considers their life will find something missing. Or at the very least they will find something askew. The only man who was ever able to repair these flaws was the Son of God. He not only came to carve the path to life after this life, He also came to show us how to live here. “I came so that they would have life and have it abundantly” (John 10:10). Life can be more than simply breaking even. There are blessings waiting for anyone who chooses to live life the way God designed it to be lived.
It’s easy to think Christianity is one of the ways to live life. There are even a lot of Christians who think this. But Christianity isn’t one of the ways to live life—it’s the only way to live life. It’s the only way to be a human being.
God invented human beings, so He knows how they work. He knows what makes them fall apart and what holds them together. He knows what makes them better. This is one of the reasons He came down in the form of flesh and blood. To show us how to be a human being. If you disregard His input, you set your life on a course that will inevitably drain you of life. But taking a step back to consider your life—your days, your hours—you can begin to get a better look at the truth. And the Truth (as only found in the Word of God) has the means to give you your life back. To make you become what you were always meant to be.
