Learning What Is True

Have you ever had trouble with people not believing something about you because the way you are doesn't make sense with how they think that the world works? That happens to me a lot. It got me thinking about how we decide what is true and false, what is right and wrong, what does and doesn't make sense.

It is easy enough to make some observations, and then to think about things and come up with why we think things were the way we observed them to be. It is also pretty easy to accept further observations that support our reasoning. But what about when more observations contradict our conclusions?

Of course, such situations bring up concerns of how accurate our observations are; we don't want to throw away true conclusions because we see some things that at first don't seem to fit. But we also don't want to avoid correcting false conclusions. So, what is to be done? How do you know whether you should be reevaluating old conclusions, or reevaluating new observations? Or could both be incorrect?

I've come to the conclusion that getting God's help is the best way to approach these situations. I don't mean just asking God questions when you want to know which questions to try to find answers for, or what the answers to your questions are, or what you should feel about things that you don't have answers to yet. Yes, I've turned to God for all of those things before, and He helped me, but I mean something a lot bigger than that. I mean, instead of seeing prayer and scripture study as ways to look up information in some sort of divine encyclopedia, we can focus on building a deep and personal relationship with God, a relationship in which it is natural to counsel with God, to ask questions, to listen and look for answers. We can walk with God, live with the Spirit, feel deep gratitude for our blessings, come to see things in more spiritual ways. And then God can guide us in learning how to find truth when things are inconsistent and confusing.