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My Weather



These days it has become popular to attach a possessive adjective to the word truth. One says, You’ve just got to live your truth, while another says, That may be right for you to believe, but this is my truth.

 

Your truth? My truth? What ever happened to the truth? How I miss the indefinite article rather than the possessive adjective! 

 

In his wonderful book The Thrill of Orthodoxy, Trevin Wax compared this way of thinking to the weather. “You may love the plentiful sunshine of a cloudless morning in late spring, or the gentle fall of snowflakes on a winter night. You may have your preferences, but you don't say my weather and your weather, because you're not in control. It's something that's there, something that happens, to which you must adapt.”

 

If we want sunshine and are dealt rain, we fool ourselves if we simply declare, “Well, my weather is sunshine!” That person would not be taken seriously. No one would be asked to play along, pretending it is sunny when it is raining. In America, you are considered a bigot if you carry an umbrella after I declared it to be sunny. That is delusional, and we do not affirm delusions. 

 

Unless of course, we are talking about something as important as truth. Then we are all asked to affirm delusions, as long as a person proclaims something to be their truth. 

 

Truth, like the weather, is out of our control. We can love it or hate it, but we can not change it. Truth may or may not be politically correct; it may or may not poll well; it might get you cancelled, but it is what it is. 

 

If you tell me you identify as a cat, I’m affirming your delusion if I bring you a litter box. Your truth might be that you are a cat, but the truth is that you are a human. And only one of those is real. 

 

The source of truth is not found within us; indeed, the Bible says in Jeremiah 17:9, “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it?” Following your heart—or your truth—can lead you to a spoiled life, and ultimately to hell. 

 

In John 10:17 Jesus prayed for His disciples, and He said these words: “Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth.” If you are looking for real truth, look to God’s Word, the unchanging source of lifegiving truth. It will never lead us astray. It will never lead us into delusion. It will lead us to fulfill our calling, to be in a real relationship with our Creator.

 

That is the truth. 

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