Have you ever experienced something that your mind refused to accept. I was playing softball at age 16 and a fellow twice my size slid into third, spiked my ankle and crushed it in three places. I lay in the dirt in a daze. When I lifted my leg to inspect my injury my whole left foot was dangling off to the left side unattached. I looked and looked and my mind just wouldn’t accept what it was seeing.
I was coaching football at a local high school in the summer of 1985. As I left the school one afternoon I saw a stick moving back and forth in a ditch off the side of the road. I thought surely it’s a young buck rubbing its horns on a small tree. I stopped and looked down in the ditch and my mind wouldn’t believe what my eyes were telling it. A man was there in the ditch, all bloodied and broken. He had been laying there all day after wrecking his motorcycle the night before.
Americans today have an uncanny ability to look truth in the face and call it a lie. Their minds just refuse to accept what they see. Is it wrong to kill and unborn infant? Yes, according to our nation’s laws. A man who kills a pregnant woman will be charged with a double homicide. But a man in a white coat who performs a ‘procedure’ for $500 is admired as a doctor determined to make our world a better place. Our minds refuse to see the ‘murder’, instead we cover our guilt by replacing the term ‘abortion’ with a soft, feel-good term like ‘pro-choice.’
Many have mastered the art of looking into the face of God and declaring that he doesn’t exist because their minds won’t accept what their eyes are seeing. Romans 1:20 “For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities – his eternal power and divine nature – have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse.” This verse is simply saying that if you look at the creation you can’t help but believe in the Creator. My experience with atheists is that most of them suffer guilt because they are making choices that violate their inner conscience. They have an inner conscience because they were created in the image of God. What better way to live a guiltless life than to declare that the One to whom we are accountable does not exist.
A certain member of my family has embraced the homosexual lifestyle. He is not the typical homosexual in that when asked if he thinks his lifestyle has immoral implications he will agree without hesitation. He is honest enough to admit that what he is doing violates a moral law taught in the Word of God. (See Romans Chapter 1). But many of that persuasion refuse to see the clarity of written truth and will instead rationalize and excuse their behavior with arguments involving genetics and other social deprivations.
We are blinded. The shades on our eyes not only keep the light away but they are so darkened by our own self-justification that we can no longer have a proper perspective of the world in which we live.
Even Christians are now so fearful of being ostracized and ridiculed that many refuse to take a stand for what is right. This fear is paralyzing a whole generation, a gutless group incapable of condemning immorality. I teach high school teen-agers and I’ve never seen so much fear of being disliked and unaccepted. Many are more than willing to sacrifice their moral integrity at the altar of political correctness and multicultural sensitivity. Sadly, most seem to be sinking in a morass of moral confusion. Thank God for that rare one who is confident in what he believes and refuses to compromise for the sake of popularity or acceptance!
God help me to pass on to my children what my parents taught me. Tell the truth no matter the consequences. Retain moral integrity because in the end it is all you really have. Stand for what you believe is right because it is important that you be able to live with yourself even when others reject you. “So then, brothers, stand firm…” and stay loyal to those things which you know to be true.
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