Two big truths

There are two big truths in the world. Okay, maybe there may be many more things that are true: the size of a snowflake, the weight of a planet, the temperature at the bottom of the ocean but on a day by basis these two are the biggies. Between them they describe the whole of the reality of human experience.

That’s a big claim.

Everyone I’ve met eventually agrees with this first one. Most people agree quickly but everyone always does after some reflection.

This is a really deeply depressing truth. If you think about the most wonderful thing, friendship or experience you’ve ever known and think about it for long enough, it is impossible not to find something flawed, even if that flaw is that it doesn’t last for ever.

The Bible calls the thing that is broken at the heart of everything: death. It was never part of the original plan. But there it is, the broken thing at the heart of everything.

So what is the second big truth and will it help? Yes, I think it does more than help but I have a hard time getting people to accept this truth.

Even though the right hand side of this image offers a truth that gives hope, peace, joy and resilience in the face of all that is broken in the world, so many struggle to believe it, much less live by it.

In the big Christian story of God, humankind and the universe there was one earth-shattering weekend when the first truth (death) swallowed up the second truth (love) and for two days all hope was gone. The love that was stronger than anything, that desired above everything to bring people back to hope and life, was rejected, condemned, tortured and put to death in a public spectacle which pretty much showcased all the vileness of which humans are capable.

But the love at the heart of everything was stronger and is stronger and death (and all its effects:fear, sadness, despair, struggle) was and will be overcome.

So do you live as if the first truth is the only reality? Probably, most of us do.

Can you live as if the second truth is true? Yes. It’s called living by faith.

“Now faith is the assurance (title deed, confirmation) of things hoped for (divinely guaranteed), and the evidence of things not seen (the conviction of their reality – faith comprehends as fact what cannot be experienced by the physical senses).” Hebrews 11: 1 The Bible Amplified version

This is why I wear a heart with the cross of nails.