Conspiracy Theories

How many conspiracies do you know of in our world right now? How many theories can you think of? I can think of at least a half-dozen current ones right off the top of my head. That's because we live in a world that thinks that nothing is what it appears to be and comes up with all these stories of what's "really" going on. 

I'd name a few, but that's getting into politics, and this is no place for politics. The point is that it's easy for us to listen to these stories claiming to tell us what we don't know about what we think we know, and then we always wonder what is the truth? What is real? What happened here? 

We aren't the first people to wrestle with such a thing, and we probably won't be the last. In fact, the prophet Isaiah was competing with the same ideas way back in his time. He even says, in chapter 8, that the world thinks everything is a conspiracy. 

But he also offers wisdom for the faithful life: don't fall for it. Don't get yourself wrapped up in conspiracy theories. 

Fear only the Lord. 

On one hand, this is a great comfort. On the other, it could be a bit of a conundrum if we don't have our faith on solid foundations. 

It's a comfort because it's absolutely true. If God is who He says He is and we believe that, if He is good, if He is loving, if He is compassionate then that's all we really need to know about the world. If God is, as He says He is, working all things together for good, it doesn't matter what's going on; God's got this. 

Ask yourself - whatever you're worried about, does it matter? Does it really matter, if God is good? If you know God and trust God, then whatever's bothering you today is already in His hands. So the wise thing to do is to know God, trust God, and fear God and let Him work things out the way that you know that His heart will - for good, for love, with grace. It really takes a lot off of your plate, doesn't it?

At the same time, we know that things don't always seem good. We don't always get to see them worked out. And this raises questions about whether God is who He says He is.

Here, we have to remember what we know about Him. That He's working all things for good, not that He only allows good things. That to Him, a thousand years is like a day. That He's far more worried about your heart than your circumstances. That He knows more than we know, that He can see more than we can see. It's easy for us to question what we know about God when it doesn't seem to be working out the way that we think that it should because we trust Him...but if we trust Him, we need not question His goodness even when it seems like it's not coming. 

What we know about God is, then, the answer to both of our sets of doubts - it is our answer to our doubts about the world (conspiracies) and it is our answer to our doubts about God. If we can keep believing what we believe even in the face of questioning it, then we will know all that we need to know about this life - God's got this. 

God's got us. 

That's the only truth we need. That's the one we should be clinging to.