What is The Truth? (Part 3)

"The sum of your word is truth, and every one of your righteous rules endures forever." -- Psalm 119:160

There was once a young man who lived his entire life in the desert. Having seen only desert sands, dunes, and a few oases his entire life, he started to believe that the whole world was one big desert. But one day he met an old man who told him about a place that was filled with dark blue water. It was called the ocean. The boy could not believe what he heard, so he decided to go on a journey to search the ocean. After asking permission from his parents, he went on his way. The whole tribe saw him off with high hopes that he would return with great stories.

He walked for many days and nights across endless sands and dunes. He braved extreme heat and cold; endured thirst and hunger until one day he came to a little forest. He was thrilled. But along his way he found only streams, rivers, a waterfalls, and swamps. No dark blue water. Finally, after many more days of endless walking, when his spirit was about to give up, he staggered onto a beach. And right before his eyes was the wide blue sea. The young man leaped with joy! He felt so happy and so proud of himself. “Wait till they hear what I have to say about the ocean!”   

The truth is usually bigger than you think.

When the young man thought that the sea was the ocean he was wrong. Because by definition a sea is only a part of an ocean. The ocean is still bigger than the sea.

When each of the five blind men in Part2 touched a part of the elephant, each believed that they knew already what the elephant looked like by touching a part of it, but they were wrong. The elephant is bigger than any of its individual parts.

The same with truth. It is usually bigger than what we usually perceived it to be since as human what we could perceive is usually limited.

The interpretations of the young man, and the blind men were incorrect because they only perceived a part of the truth, not the entire truth.

To know the truth you have to see it in its entirety.

My eldest and second daughter like to solve maze. It’s complicated and therefore difficult, but is not impossible to solve. It’s because they have one winning advantage – they have a bird’s eye view of the entire maze.

Life is like a maze; it’s complicated and therefore difficult. Unfortunately, we have to live in it like a trapped mouse instead of a souring eagle. We don’t know exactly where the next right path is because we don’t have a bird’s eye view of our life from start to finish. All we can do is to try, stumble, try again, stumble again, try some more until we succeed...just like a trapped mouse.We flip-flopped between good and bad decisions every now and then.

The same is true with our relationships. It's like playing a maze without the advantage of a bird's eye view; there is no way for us to know exactly what the other person thinks and feels. Yes, we might get a glimpse of it through his/her words and actions, but not its entirety. And man/woman can lie and fake.

So succeeding in life and in our relationships is not as easy as playing maze after all. In fact it's more difficult. If only we could have that bird's eye view of what lies ahead of us, and of what people feels and thinks about us then we could make better decisions, and we could be winners in life and in our relationships.

But we don't; no one does. Nobody knows the WHOLE truth about his/her life, and what other people think and feel about him/her. This is not humanly possible. No matter how smart a person is, he/she could never predict exactly and consistently what would happen tomorrow or what the other person would do.

Does this mean that we cannot become winners in our life, and in our relationships?

Not exactly. Because there’s another way to know the truth about life, and the truth about relationships.

If we couldn’t see life in its entirety, the next best thing to do is to ask someone who really knows the whole truth about life, about relationships, and a bunch of other important things.

But is there someone who is all-knowing?

I believe so. He knows about life because he authored it. He knows about everyone even the number of each person's hairs because he created man/woman. His name is God, the Alpha and the Omega; the "I am what I am." 

God is the biggest truth of all for He is the source of all truths about life, relationships, and everything else.

Am I still being truthful here? Or am I now spreading lies? (Because you can't see God?)

Even though we couldn't see God doesn't necessarily mean that He does not exist. After all, absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. It could also mean that you just haven't discovered the evidence yet. But how can we discover the great truth that is God?

Let's look at it this way. Why did Christopher Columbus sailed on where no sailor had ever gone before? Why did President John F. Kennedy approved the Apollo program? Why did Sir Edmund Hillary climbed Mt. Everest?

These men, and many others, risked their life, their fortune and their name because...they BELIEVE. They had faith.

To discover something that your senses haven't perceived before or couldn't perceive now you have to believe that that something exist, that discovering it is possible, and that you've got what it takes to discover it. Because faith, even if a little shaky and vague, is necessary to propel you to investigate, to explore and then to discover. Without it, what's the point of taking action, enduring hardship and taking risks?

If until now you haven't yet discovered the great truth that is God, is it maybe because until now you haven't have that faith yet necessary to propel you to investigate the truth about God? Is it possible that you already rejected his existence even before you really tried to know Him?

In closing, to know the truth we have to see it in its entirety; we've got to perceive not only the tail or trunk of the truth, but the whole truth itself. But as human beings our perception is limited so usually we only perceive a part of the truth. Therefore we need an all-knowing God, the source of all truths, to guide us in life and in our relationships. But to discover Him, a little faith is required. But without Him we would be returning to our love ones saying that we've seen the ocean even though when we've only seen the sea. 

Part 2 / Part 4