I have a 2015 Nissan Pathfinder. I inherited it from my stepfather. It has 150,000 miles on it. And that is just about the total extent of my automobile knowledge. I know lots of stuff, but when it comes to auto mechanics, I am woefully ignorant.
Lately, the Pathfinder has developed a “shudder.” I told you I don’t know car talk. When I am going slow, it kind of shakes a little before it rights itself and gets on with the business at hand. Now, because I know so little about cars, I make sure I know people that I trust who DO know about them.
I took the shuddering, shaking Pathfinder to my trusted mechanic shop. They took a look, did a drive, and came back with a diagnosis. “It is the transmission. We don’t do those, but here is a knowledgeable guy who does.”
Fair enough. I don’t expect any one person to have all the answers, so I took it to trusted guy number two. He took SSP (Shuddering, Shaking Pathfinder) for a look and a drive and came back with a diagnosis. “It is the motor. It needs a tune-up. We don’t do that here. Take it back to trusted mechanic number one.”
This is not a conversation about cars and mechanics. It is an observation that you can have people that you trust in your life, people you believe are being honest with you and giving you their very best advice, and get diametrically opposite information from them. I don’t think these guys were lying. I don’t think they were just blowing me off. I think that each one believed he was right and that I needed to follow his advice.
We live in a really divided world right now. Spiritually, politically, socially, we are so polarized and divided. And, to be honest, I don’t know enough to be sure of the answers about any of this stuff. (I bet you’re glad you are reading this right now, aren’t you? 😂)
I try to have people in my life who know more than me, people I can listen to, learn from, and who will help me make good decisions: spiritual, political, and social.
I have two men that I really look up to about all three of these topics. They are smart. They are Godly. They are good men. Just a few days after the midterm elections, I was listening to and reading them both. One did a podcast. It was really good. The other wrote a blog. It was excellent. AND THEY SAID COMPLETELY CONTRADICTORY THINGS. One guy says the election is the result of the church being too mean and myopic. Closed off, uncompromising, self serving and not seeker sensitive. The other guys says the election is the result of the church watering down the truth, not holding to our convictions, being too worldly. One says we need do open up and embrace the broken. The other says we need to double down and separate ourselves from the world. (Both of those things are in the Bible, by the way.)
Man, smart guys who were not lying to me, and who both thought they were right, saying opposite things. This is crazy. 🤓
What do I do? Sell the Pathfinder and buy another car? Move to a cabin in the middle of the woods and turn off my internet? Probably neither one of those things. But it does raise some important questions about how we navigate a world in which people we respect and trust can come to very different conclusions.
Here are a few things I am trying to remind myself.
1. There is truth.
I don’t want to suggest that truth is relative, that everybody gets to have their own truth, or that right and wrong are simply matters of personal opinion. They aren’t.
There is truth. There are things that are right and things that are wrong. There are better answers and worse answers. There are biblical convictions that should not be compromised simply because the culture has changed or because someone disagrees with us.
Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life” (John 14:6). Truth is not simply an idea to be debated. Ultimately, truth is found in a person.
But here’s where it gets interesting. While truth is absolute, my understanding of truth is not.
2. We usually only know the truth in part.
The transmission guy was looking from a transmission perspective. The motor guy was thinking about the motor.
I like 1 Corinthians 13:12: “For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known.”
Paul is writing about love, but tucked in here is an important reminder about the limitations of our understanding. We see in part. We know in part. We understand in part.
The problem is that we often confuse our understanding of the truth with the truth itself. We take what we see, what we have experienced, what we have studied, and what we have concluded, and we assume that we have the whole picture. We don’t.
Our experiences shape our perspectives. Our backgrounds influence our conclusions. Our political, theological, and cultural environments affect what we see and sometimes what we fail to see.
Recognizing that we see through a glass dimly shouldn’t make us less committed to truth. It should make us more humble about our ability to see it completely.
3. We need mentors and people who challenge our thinking.
I am a big believer in having people in your life who know more than you do. People who have walked farther down the road. People who have studied more, experienced more, and perhaps made more mistakes than you have. (Now that stuff, I do know.😂)
We need people who will tell us what we need to hear, not simply what we want to hear. And, need people who don’t all think exactly alike. If every person I listen to agrees with me, perhaps I am not being challenged enough. If every voice I hear reinforces my existing opinions, I may be building an echo chamber rather than developing wisdom.
I need people who love God, love truth, and love me enough to challenge my conclusions. Sometimes the person who disagrees with me is the very person God uses to help me see something I have missed. And I need to be careful not to dismiss someone simply because they have reached a different conclusion.
4. Ultimately, I have to make my own decision.
Mentors can advise me. Teachers can instruct me. Pastors can guide me. Authors can challenge me. Podcasts can inform me. But none of them can do my thinking, praying, studying, and discerning for me.
At some point, I have to take responsibility for what I believe and why I believe it.
The Bereans in Acts 17:11 provide a wonderful example. When Paul and Silas arrived and began teaching, the Bereans listened eagerly. But they didn’t simply accept everything because Paul was an impressive teacher. They examined the Scriptures daily to see if what he was saying was true.
I love that combination. They were open enough to listen and discerning enough to investigate.
I think we need to do the same.
We pray. We study Scripture. We consider the evidence. We listen to wise people. We examine our own motives. We reflect. And then, with humility, we reach a conclusion.
Not because we have become the final authority on everything, but because we have a responsibility before God to be thoughtful and discerning people.
5. We need to offer grace to people who reach different conclusions.
This may be the hardest part. I can be convinced that I am right without assuming that everyone who disagrees with me is foolish, dishonest, uninformed, or spiritually immature.
I can hold a strong conviction without holding a grudge. I can disagree without being disagreeable. I can challenge someone’s thinking without questioning their character. And I can leave room for the possibility that I have something to learn.
There is a difference between defending a conviction and demeaning a person. We have become pretty good at the first and pretty terrible at the second. I want to be a person who can say, “I believe you are wrong about this, but I still love you, respect you, and want to understand how you arrived at that conclusion.”
I want to extend that grace to people who disagree with me, and I hope they will extend it to me.
So, what about the Pathfinder?
I still don’t know whether it is the transmission or the motor. I fixed them both and it still shutters and shakes. That’s okay. I’ll keep driving it. Keep watching YouTube. Keep asking people with grease under their fingernails.
And perhaps that is not a bad approach to life.
I believe there is truth. I believe it matters. I believe we should pursue it with all the wisdom, discernment, and resources God gives us. But I also believe that none of us has a corner on all of it.
We see in part. We know in part. We need one another. We need to listen, learn, pray, study, and think. And we need to extend grace to people who, in good faith, see things differently than we do.
Maybe the world doesn’t need fewer convictions. Maybe it needs more humility, more thoughtful conversations, more honest questions, and a whole lot more grace. And maybe, just maybe, we could start by being a little less certain that we have everything figured out.
Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have a Pathfinder to fix. And apparently, I need a third opinion.