Living in the modern world is tough. You want to follow the contemporary views, yet you will quickly find that they are highly superficial and without substance. You want to follow the Truth, yet the contemporaries will quickly blast you for being a hypocrite. In most contemporary views, all you care about is about "feeling good" regardless of the truth. It's true, following the Truth will not always make you "feel good." In retrospect, though, you will eventually feel good because you know you followed the Truth. That being said, what we know about the Truth may not be complete, and may be completed if we understand the contemporary. We hear all these voices around us as we walk our life path, which one is the Truth? Which one is the evil one?
Imagine you are entering a room you have never been to before. You are also blind. As you walk through the door, you can hear there are many guests already arrived in the room. Some of them have been in the room much earlier than you. Some of these people are also blind like you, and it was also their first time in the room. As you navigate deeper into the room, because you are blind, you stumble upon things. You stumbled upon a coffee table, with a glass top. It has no frame around the glass, and the legs are made out of some kind of metal. Imagine you have never know of a coffee table before this. Then you ask, "What is this?"
Someone answered, "It's just a glass table."
Another answered, "It's a coffee table."
Then you ask, "What is it for?"
The first one answered, "You can tap it, knock it, or bang it. It will make a funny sound."
The second answered, "No, don't do that, you will break it and hurt yourself. You can put your cup on the table, or a book, but don't hit it."
But because it made you stumble as you try to get across the room, you ask, "Why is it here, in my path?"
Again, the first answered, "I don't know, it just been there all this time. If you need to go past it, you can step on it and walk over it."
The second person said, "Are you crazy? You will definitely break the table. Just walk along the edges of the table and get around it."
A third person said, "Well, you can always move the table to the side..."
The first person replies, "Look, I can see it there. It won't break, it's strong enough to hold your weight. It looks pretty, and stop listening to these sissies."
Now imagine that some of those people in the room are not blind, but some are. How do you know which one who says "I can see" can actually see? Even if they can see, would you trust their advice? Would you rather trust someone who says he can see, but only has been in the room a few seconds before you and only thinks he knows everything since he can see, or would you trust the person who owns the room, knows everything about the room inside-out, but blind?
As we live our lives in this worlds, we hear people of different religions, different ideologies say different things on how to live. One person's view may say "This is harmless." Another may say "That is really bad." Often times, we don't know why we should trust one and not the other because we don't know who's telling the truth, and we just go on our own way to find things out ourselves -- sometimes the hard way. Really, it is our discretion to accept and to trust someone, or something as our walking cane in life.
To me, there hasn't been a kinder, gentler voice that helped me walk across the room blind than God's. Sometimes, I felt His voice even too soft, and obscured by the other voices around me, that I missed it. Most of the time, He spoke through another blind person like me, who He somehow led to say what He wanted to say to me. When I missed His direction, or when I forgot His advice as I navigate around the room, I stumble and hit my toes so hard, it's painful. I might even crash into a chair, and hit my ribs on the backrest. When I hurt myself, He would ask, "Are you OK?" If I break something on purpose, He would definitely be angry with me, and maybe throw me out of the room. If I admit I was wrong and was sorry and won't do it again, He would forgive me.
As I figure out which things around the room can hurt me, and how I can avoid them, I'm well on my way. Even though I was blind, I am free to walk around the room. Being free is not about being able to do anything you want; being free is about knowing enough of your boundaries, and limitations as going beyond that is hazardous. And only then you are free to do what you can, because you know what you can't do. The way you know these bounds is by choosing who you listen to and trust, and through your own experiences. If you trust everyone, then there will be contradictions. Someone may hate you for not trusting them, but if they only thinks they know what's right, why trust them? Occasionally, I need to test and challenge these boundaries - sometimes it takes experience than dictation to know our true bounds. I'll try to touch and feel the coffee table first before I decide what to do to get past it. And sometimes, someone in the crowd will say, "I told you so." That is part of the Truth.
He is actually in the back room, where sometimes He would tell His Son to help lead me to Him. He is a very busy man. I wanted to meet Him because He invited me into His home. Yes, He is the owner of this room, and He is not blind.
No comments:
Post a Comment