The Crisis of Reality

All crises are not equal. Crises do not take the same form or yield the same fruit. If you wake up during the night to the smell of smoke and flames are quickly engulfing your home, no one has to tell you that you are facing a crisis. Think of the first person in China or the United States who exhibited symptoms of being physically ill from the Covid-19 virus. Do you think that individual recognized in that moment that much of the world would experience a Covid-19 crisis? Those who were the first to contract Covid-19 probably did not expect millions of people to die from this deadly virus.

I have written a number of blogs up to this point, but this particular blog in my mind is the most important blog I have written. The focus of this blog is the current crisis of reality in the United States and around the world.

How can you have a crisis of reality? It is much easier than one may think. Reality is what is. It unfolds second by second. The current second of your life is the current reality of your life. Once the current second of your life is lived, you cannot erase it. If you are driving down the road and drift into the oncoming lane of traffic or allow the car to run off the highway, you may be able to steer the vehicle back into the proper lane, but you cannot erase the reality of what has happened. We know that some people are able to correct the driving mistake. Others have not been so fortunate and died because of their losing control of the vehicle.

In some cases, we can respond to reality in a corrective, redemption fashion, but only when we recognize reality as reality and respond to reality as reality. When we deny, distort or manipulate reality for our own gain or selfish purposes, we create a crisis of reality.

The only way to avoid a crisis of reality is to identify reality and allow reality to be the sole expression of truth. This means that reality is truth. The Bible has many illustrations of reality as truth. One vivid illustration is found in 1 Samuel 15. Samuel gave a command from God to King Saul in 1 Samuel 15:2, 3. "Thus says the Lord of hosts: 'I will punish what Amalek did to Israel, how he ambushed him on the way when he came up from Egypt. Now go and attack Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have, and do not spare them. But kill both man and woman, infant and nursing child, ox and sheep, camel and donkey.'" The command from the Lord that Samuel issued to Saul was clear. People may debate how God could have commanded Saul to do such a thing, but that is not a discussion for this blog. There is no debate as to the clarity of the command.

How did King Saul respond to God's command. The answer is found in 1 Samuel15:7-9. "And Saul attacked the Amalekites, from Havilah all the way to Shur, which is east of Egypt. He also took Agag king of the Amalekites alive, and utterly destroyed all the people with the edge of the sword. But Saul and the people spared Agag and the best of the sheep, the oxen, the fatlings, the lambs, and all that was good, and were unwilling to utterly destroy them. But everything despised and worthless, that they utterly destroyed."

1 Samuel 15:13, 14 is where we encounter the crisis of reality. "Then Samuel went to Saul, and Saul said to him, 'Blessed are you of the Lord! I have performed the commandment of the Lord'. But Samuel said, 'What then is this bleating of the sheep in my ears, and the lowing of the oxen which I hear?'"

When King Saul came to Samuel, he purported to tell him the truth. He told Samuel that he had obeyed God's command. There was just one problem. The version of the truth that Saul gave Samuel did not match reality. The bleating of the sheep and the lowing of the oxen represented true reality. The so-called truth of Saul was a distortion of reality.

We are facing a crisis of reality today. Versions of the truth are spewed forth from multiple sources that do not match reality. Any distortion of reality is false. Lies in the form of deliberate, distorted reality are disseminated throughout our society which people blindly and tragically believe are reality.

Reality once it is reality does not change. If we insist on constructing versions of truth contrary to reality, we only propagate lies and deceive ourselves. This is the current crisis raging in our nation and around our world. Saul's distortion of reality which he tried to pass off as the truth did not end well for him. If we do not recognize the current crisis of reality, things will not end well for us. Reality is truth. God help me to be committed to it without compromise. This is my prayer. I hope it will be yours.