One day, Herman’s wife, in a complete and utter panic, called her husband on his cell phone at a time she knew he normally would be commuting home.
“Herman!” she cries out, “Are you ok?! I’m watching the news, and they’re saying some madman is driving the wrong way on the freeway you take home each day.”
Equally panicked, Herman yells into the phone, “Some madman! SOME madman! They’re ALL driving the wrong way!”
Poor Herman. Seems he didn’t remember what we read in Proverbs 14:12, “There is a way which seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death.”
We can think we’re doing the right thing—we can be convinced we’re doing the right thing, and we can still be completely, utterly, spectacularly wrong. And couple that with the fact that, as we read in Jeremiah 17:9 that, “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: whoc an know it?,” and we see all the more reason why our own hearts, thoughts, emotions can’t be trusted.
So what’s the answer? Well, part of the answer is to NOT trust ourselves. Oh, we’re given some sense of right and wrong—you don’t have to be a believer to be watching the news, and get upset and incensed over some horrible crime. It’s not that we don’t understand there’s right and wrong, the problem is, our sensibilities are tainted, defective—it’s not that they don’t exist, it’s that they’re not trustworthy, they can’t be relied upon.
And, too often, when we do recognize a problem, we’re just like Herman—the problem must be with everybody except me. Proverbs 16:2 tells us, “All the ways of a man are pure in his own eyes.” If Herman could have just gotten everyone else to realize he was right and they were all wrong, well, they could have all turned around and Herman could have gotten home much more safely. Of course, the problem is, like Herman, everyone else is equally convinced that they’re right, that their ways are the ones that are right and pure.
So, if we can’t trust ourselves, who can we trust? Where can we find truth? Thankfully, there is an answer to that question, we’re not left to grope around in the dark, unable to ever find this illusive thing called truth. No, we are given a light, and that of course is, God’s Word. “Thy word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path,” we read in Psalm 119:105.
“Trust in the LORD with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding,” we read in Proverbs 3:5.
And then of course there are the words of Jesus, in John 17:17, who tells us of God’s Word, “Thy word is truth.”
Looking for truth? Looking for answers? Look to God’s Word, the Bible.
And meantime, be on the lookout for Herman.