Lies and The Truth

Hello there.

It is officially here!  My first paycheck from my new job!

God has really blessed me by providing it, and by putting wonderful, thoughtful people in my life to help me get connected with it.  I am so grateful.

Well, I walked outside this morning and smelled something delicious.

Fall.

Yes, I caught my first scent of fall this morning, and it was glorious.  I couldn't breathe in deeply enough.

So, like I told you earlier this week, I am rereading The Giver.  The whole premise of the book is interesting, but I came across a passage today that struck me as fascinating.

A little background: children in the community are given assignments for the "career" they will have for the rest of their lives.  They each receive a set of rules that goes along with their assignment, and the main character is the only one chosen for his assignment.  He reads his list of rules, and finds himself in a moral conflict.

For as long as he has been alive, he has been instructed not to utter the simplest lie.  He was even reprimanded for saying, "I'm starving" because no one in the community had ever or would ever starve.  His rules, however, say he is now allowed to do so.

He thinks to himself that he still would never tell a lie, and then is struck with the horrifying realization that maybe, if he was told he could lie, other people, after receiving their assignment rules, were given the same option.  He then thinks he could ask someone, but he would never know if they were telling the truth or not.  The implications are that everything he knows about his community, or everything he has been told by his parents, could in fact, be false.

Obviously, I cannot retell his story as well as he did in the book (so you should read it), but I'm telling you- it gave me goosebumps when he came to his conclusion.  It was kind of terrifying.  

It made me think that we don't really consider that because all we know is a sinful world.  We've never lived in an innocent one.  Sure, lying is not encouraged, and sometimes illegal.  But just imagine, coming from a world where that was unthinkable, and then finding out that maybe you were being lied to the entire time.  Yikes.

You know, there have been moments, I would guess (maybe hope, so that I'm not the only one), in all Christian lives, where we have had the brief thought, "What if it's all made up?  What if atheists are right?  What if there's nothing after death?"

But that's where faith comes in.  Not to mention fulfilled prophecies, miracles, and seeing the way God answers prayers.

Now faith is the substance of what is hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.

Hebrews 11:1    

              

Anyway, I quickly gulped my coffee this morning because I stayed up late last night to wait up for Jered.  I told him it was the end of our fifth year together, and (in the most adorably genuine way that made me smile) his eyes lit up, and he exclaimed, "Yeah!  You're right!"  We settled into watching the second half of Mission Impossible 2, and just after midnight he wished me an official happy five years.

He's pretty fantastic, I tell ya.

Well friends, happy Friday!  I hope you had a delightful week and that you're enjoying this weather.  Have a great weekend!  (I'm starting mine off tonight with some much needed business attire shopping!)

Aim