" Where do we find love?" was an article I recently read. The writer, as a young boy, remembered attending a small Protestant Church in his neighborhood. The service had ended and it was time for snacks. The minister asked the children for questions; the young boy raised his hand and boldly asked, "They say we have a soul. Where is it?"
The minister, laughing, asked him: "Do your parents love you?" The boy answered yes, and the minister asked again: "Where is that love?"
The writer tells us that it was the first time in his life that he was introduced to abstract concepts; on that day, he became conscious of the unseen world.
If our heads do not understand, we tend not to believe, he writes, and what we cannot verify with our eyes we put on the back burner. We see and believe what we want to, and in most cases we depend on things that are not certain. We often follow mistaken certainty, and our actions follow suit.
We hear, notes the writer, that we only use a small part of our brains--true. But we've also heard that listening to Mozart will increase a child's IQ. This is not true and has been generally recognized as such for sometime. It was once thought that venting your feelings was good for you; now they tell us differently.
In Korea, we were captivated by the idea of EQ (Emotional Intelligence Quotient) that came in from the States. Parents of perfectly normal children, with no need for this exposure, were sending their children to academies to learn all about it, spending thousands of dollars. It was the thing to do.
The minister, laughing, asked him: "Do your parents love you?" The boy answered yes, and the minister asked again: "Where is that love?"
The writer tells us that it was the first time in his life that he was introduced to abstract concepts; on that day, he became conscious of the unseen world.
If our heads do not understand, we tend not to believe, he writes, and what we cannot verify with our eyes we put on the back burner. We see and believe what we want to, and in most cases we depend on things that are not certain. We often follow mistaken certainty, and our actions follow suit.
We hear, notes the writer, that we only use a small part of our brains--true. But we've also heard that listening to Mozart will increase a child's IQ. This is not true and has been generally recognized as such for sometime. It was once thought that venting your feelings was good for you; now they tell us differently.
In Korea, we were captivated by the idea of EQ (Emotional Intelligence Quotient) that came in from the States. Parents of perfectly normal children, with no need for this exposure, were sending their children to academies to learn all about it, spending thousands of dollars. It was the thing to do.
Instead of too quickly accepting what is being passed around as the truth, we have to begin by getting rid of what is covering our eyes, getting down humbly on our knees and clasping our hands. Knowledge that is not ripe, mistaken convictions, mass thinking and unquestioning belief should be discarded. He concludes the article: "We do not fix our gaze on what is seen but on what is unseen. What is seen is transitory: what is unseen lasts forever" (II Cor. 4:18).
"A little learning is a dangerous thing; drink deep or taste not..." is a saying we are familiar with and know to be true. There are many things that we think we know but are deceiving us. This may be a blessing in many cases, as we sometimes struggle to know the truth, but it should also humble us and enable us to be open to truth that may come into our lives in different ways, grace not the least.
