But I read it on Wikipedia: Where are we getting our information?

"I'm pretty sure I'm dying...oh.. and I'm pregnant," I factually tell my husband Stephen after looking up the symptoms I have been having the past few days. I was feeling very tired, having headaches, feeling sore, and a few other things that together made me think there was something wrong with me. So I headed online to try and figure out what was wrong with me. To make a long story short, by the end of my searching, I was positive I was pregnant and had now found a lump on my neck that I was sure was malignant.

I was not pregnant nor did I have cancer. So how did I come to these hasty conclusions? Where in the world was I getting my information? The answer? Sites that play into the fear people have that there is something deathly wrong with them...and I was a sucker just like the other thousands of people persuaded to believe that they too were suffering from a severe illness. As C.S Lewis puts it in his book,The Screwtape Letters, "Suspicion often creates what it suspects." The truth is that what I was feeling was my lymph node on my neck, but because of reading tons of articles that told me what I suspected (feared), that it was the symptom of something very serious, I just believed it, and started freaking out. This may sound ridiculous, and I admit in retrospect I do feel that way, but is it really that far from what we do with other sources of information? We read an article online, a chapter in a book, or hear something from someone that they heard from someone else, and before we know it, we are jumping to a conclusion that is based on nothing but some random website by some random author, that may or may not know what they are talking about. Where are we getting our information?

I have stopped looking up my symptoms online simply because the result is almost always the rationalization that there is something very wrong with me. I would claim instead that there is something very wrong with the way we decide that something is true at all. We wouldn't take as truth something some scary looking guy on a street corner shouted out in rage as we drove by; we would roll up our window and pray the light changes soon. How would we like to find out that the new idea we have been raving about, the idea we have taken as our truth, was based on that same guy's article online that we happened to run across, but because it seemed very persuasive and authoritative at the time, we have now unknowingly become the spokesperson for the crazy man yelling in a rage on the side of the street corner.

"I know it's true because I read it on the Wikipedia." I'm sure we have all heard something similar that made our eyes roll when someone claims they know what they are talking about based on something as solid as jello. Although this justification may seem ridiculous to us, how often do we get some of our ideas based on something someone told us, or something we read somewhere? How often when we read things, do we really dig deeper and spend the time finding the truth before we take for granted that the information we just read, watched, etc. is actually correct? Do we take the time and find out for ourselves, or just claim it as our own and defend it because it "feels" right and therefore it is. How many times have you "felt" something that turned out to be very, very wrong?

I can't count the number of times my emotions lead me to believe one thing, but when I dig deeper, pray, go back to my ultimate source of truth (the Bible), I realize I just wanted to believe that because it feels better, and that is me in my sinful nature wanting to justify sin by thinking "as long as I am being sincere, that's what really counts, right?" Wrong. Being sincere has nothing to do with right and wrong. A person could murder their spouse for cheating on them with all the sincerity in the world, but that by no means makes it right. That is not to say sincerity is not important, but when it becomes the basis for an action or belief, it is a very slippery slope that easily gives way to justifying sin based on emotion. Our emotions change all the time. What society says is "truth" changes all the time. The word of God NEVER changes.

I ask again: where are we getting our information?

We can hop on Google, and in a matter of seconds be reading a article about any topic with hundreds of professional-looking articles that seem to be giving accurate information. Before we know it, we are jumping to conclusions based on some crazy article whose writer is really convinced that the lies he has been reading are true... and the crazy torch is passed on.

The Bible doesn't diagnose our medical symptoms, but it does give us a foundation upon which to live our lives. If there is something in the Bible that blatantly contradicts something we have embraced as "truth", there should be cause for alarm; a red flag that is extremely dangerous to ignore. Just because it "feels" right and because we are sincere by no means makes it right. It is a hard reality that our minds and hearts often lead us down a dark path, but it should not come as a surprise that the devil uses our weaknesses against us. In the garden of Eden, Satan made eve question God's authority by twisting God's words to say what Eve wanted to hear, that she could eat the apple, and that it wasn't really sin.

Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the LORD God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden’?” Genesis 3:1

What or whom is the serpent in your life that is succeeding at convincing you that right is wrong and wrong is right? Now we would be foolish to think that the devil would strike in a place that we are strong in our faith. He will strike where we are weakest, in our most vulnerable time, and in ways that make us "feel" like we are justified. Evil hardly ever really looks like evil on the outside. It often looks and feels like the right thing, and we justify it in the name of love or selflessness. Our society has brain-washed people into believing that we are loving someone by never telling them things that will hurt them. True love does not always feel good. When a parent punishes a child, does that make the parent feel good? It feels awful, but because they truly love a child they will do what is best for the child even if for a time it "feels" painful to the child and to the parent. When Christ died on the cross for our sins, that was the greatest form of love that there has ever been. Do you think it felt good for Jesus to die on the cross? Do you think God was feeling warm and fuzzy inside that he had to let his own son die in agony?

Who are we listening to? The media? Political agendas? Our "feelings"? How many "likes" we get in response to our status on Facebook? Oprah? I don't think any of these things are inherently evil, but when they start to dictate how we live our lives or what we start to accept as truth, they have taken God's rightful place as the only real source of truth. When we are more worried about what men will think than what God will think about our actions, words, and thoughts, that should remind us that we need to check back in with the only Righteous judge and the only one to whom will we ever answer.


1 In the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who will judge the living and the dead, and in view of his appearing and his kingdom, I give you this charge: 2 Preach the word; be prepared in season and out of season; correct, rebuke and encourage—with great patience and careful instruction. 3 For the time will come when people will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear. 4 They will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths. 5 But you, keep your head in all situations, endure hardship, do the work of an evangelist, discharge all the duties of your ministry. 2 Timothy 4:1-5