Thought of the Day 06.04.08

I just saw my new favorite bumper sticker on a car yesterday. It said, “Don’t believe everything you think.” Now, obviously, it is meant as a tweak on the old saw, “Don’t believe everything you hear (or “read,” or “see on TV”).” But the tweak is really important, since those older sayings, though valuable, commit a major mistake: they presume the reliability of our own thoughts. And this updated version reminds us that the biggest source of error in our lives is not something “out there,” but everything “in here.”

Think of it this way. Imagine that God thinks at a level ten and that the most unwise person in history thinks at a zero. We’ll optimistically put you at a three. Clearly, when a one talks, you recognize it as foolishness because it’s so far from your own mental comfort zone. But what happens when you encounter a six? You think he’s crazy, not because he is, but because he’s just so far from what you know. And you’re so accustomed to trusting yourself that you never even realize what a dangerous mentor you might really be.

So if the Bible is a ten, we should expect at least two things from studying it. One, it will regularly tell us we’re wrong. And two, it will regularly strike us as absurd. But then again, “Don’t believe everything you think.”