“Do not say, ‘Why were the former days better than these?’ For you do not inquire wisely concerning this.” Ecclesiastes 7:10

Just The Facts, Ma’am, Part 1

The family has gathered for the holidays. Get out the family photos! Tell family stories! Remember that mud football game among all the boys out in the rainy field? Remember the snowstorm where the snow fell until it was over the door, and we stuck the pan of hot tea out the window into a drift? Remember Grandma’s amazing rhubarb pie?

Who among us doesn’t occasionally look back at some period of our lives, recalling with fondness certain aspects while conveniently forgetting the less pleasant parts? I am particularly prone to this when my now-grown kids come home: the days that are past have taken on disproportionate measures of goodness, beauty, and fun. Huge and wonderful in our minds, they loom ever larger as The Ideal, making today seem so blah, boring, even contemptible.

Our memories of events are, at best, only partly factual, and largely made up of fantasy or imagination as more time passes. This goes for the unpleasant memories, too.

It is likewise true that two or more people present at an event will often tell the story of it so differently that it is barely recognizable from one to the other. One person cannot tell a complete event in its entirety, and to hear only one side of the story is to not hear the whole truth, and thus you have not heard “nothing but the truth.” One person cannot be so unbiased, one person cannot stand in all places and see all things at once, one person cannot know the motives and heart and mind of all players in the story. Thus, interpretations of events differ. The person telling the story may even have his own hidden agenda, thus clouding his ability to accurately re-tell what happened. He may have low esteem, and thus leave out any part he may have played because it was “unimportant.” Or, he may be prone to pride, and thus the re-telling gives his part more importance than it should have. God well knew our tendencies, and in His law (Deuteronomy 17:6) He instructed His people to hear the testimony of two or three witnesses before sentencing someone to die; a person could not be put to death on the testimony of only one person.

Remember the Dragnet show of the 1950’s? It was a cop show, and the lead detective, Sgt. Friday, was forever steering the re-telling of events by saying, “Just the facts, ma’am, just the facts.”

Somehow, we all fill in the pieces missing from our memories with our imaginations. We don’t do this consciously, but unless we are reading from a diary or journal we kept while a thing is actually happening, the chances are good that we are remembering only partly.

It is an immense relief to stand on the rock-solid, never-changing, unbiased truth of the Word of God. All scripture was God-breathed and not subject to man’s view or interpretation. We do not need to have an opinion about any part of it. We cannot say that any given passage was “for then” and not “for now.” It is all relevant, applicable to our lives, and fully true, for all mankind, for all time.

Tomorrow we’ll finish this discussion about looking back at the past.

God of all things, we declare You are supreme in all Your doings. Your Word is trustworthy. Help us be discerning about what we hear, see, and remember. In Jesus’ Name, Amen.