Don't Be So Sure You Are Right
"Permit me, sir, to give you one piece of advice. Be not so positive; especially with regard to things which are neither easy nor necessary to be determined. When I was young I was sure of everything. In a few years, having been mistaken a thousand times, I was not half so sure of most things as I was before. At present, I am hardly sure of anything but what God has revealed to man." John Wesley, London Magazine, 1775.
True enough. The young are always certain their ideas, political and economic ideologies, and cultural values are right and that those of their parents (and anyone else who differs with them) are wrong. I was the same myself.
As you get older and mature, you realize that most of your ideas just don't work, and that those of others sometimes do.
Unfortunately, growing older physically and maturing are two different things. We live in the age when the "Peter Pan Syndrome" has become epidemic, and it shows in our national life. No one is willing to even have a civil conversation with someone who disagrees with them.
On the other hand, what God has revealed to man in the Bible is true and remains so. You can rely fully on it. It won't change when a different political party gets control of the government, or when a new President is elected, or a new "scientific" study comes out "proving" the latest cultural fad, or schools start teaching math in a new even less comprehensible way!
True enough. The young are always certain their ideas, political and economic ideologies, and cultural values are right and that those of their parents (and anyone else who differs with them) are wrong. I was the same myself.
As you get older and mature, you realize that most of your ideas just don't work, and that those of others sometimes do.
Unfortunately, growing older physically and maturing are two different things. We live in the age when the "Peter Pan Syndrome" has become epidemic, and it shows in our national life. No one is willing to even have a civil conversation with someone who disagrees with them.
On the other hand, what God has revealed to man in the Bible is true and remains so. You can rely fully on it. It won't change when a different political party gets control of the government, or when a new President is elected, or a new "scientific" study comes out "proving" the latest cultural fad, or schools start teaching math in a new even less comprehensible way!
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