Ramon Arias | December 31, 2012
Tradition can often distract or deny the reality of life. The western world celebrates the New Year with all kinds of desires and resolutions that fall into wishful thinking. We are getting ready to suffer the severe consequences of unrealistic beliefs due to the wishful thinking of people for things to be better without the responsibility to make them happen. Here are some of the synonyms for wishful thinking: delusion, fantasy, self-delusion, self-deception, cuckoo-land.
This New Year comes with a louder than ever SOS, we need help big time and we need it now! However, we must learn from the past and be careful to whom we send the SOS. If we are honest we know that our SOS should not be sent to the civil government, banking system, commerce, “intellectuals,” academia, media, entertainment, and for the most part not even the church. Why not? For obvious reasons, they got us into all this mess in the first place. But are they the only ones to bare the blame? Absolutely not! Who then are the primaries responsible for all this mess? WE THE PEOPLE! We allowed things to be where they are today, and that is the bottom line!
Our actions determine the directions all things must take. Let’s be honest and admit where we are now. If we continue down this road, where do you think we will be as a nation in ten, five, or three years from now? And here is the next question: to whom shall we send our SOS? Be careful how you answer, just remember that man’s “brilliant wisdom” got us here; not that brilliant after all, are they? Am I implying all individuals are foolish? Never, there are some who are very wise, but their answer to our dilemma is being blocked from getting to us. If we are going to solve our problems this will not be without severe pain, but in the end we will restore the nation and move her in the right direction once again.
We can send the SOS keeping in mind the following admonitions from the only reliable source of truth:
Thus says the Lord: “Cursed is the man who trusts in man and makes flesh his strength, whose heart turns away from the Lord. He is like a shrub in the desert, and shall not see any good come. He shall dwell in the parched places of the wilderness, in an uninhabited salt land. That you know me says the Lord” (Jeremiah 17:5-6).
Is this statement saying we should not trust anyone? No, that is not what it says. A person becomes cursed when confidence is placed on mere mortals whose lives are not transformed by the renewing of their minds with God’s knowledge. Anyone whose mind and heart turns away from God’s ethics can never expect things to go right, it is impossible no matter how promising they may look. You may send these people your SOS and you can he assured you will get a mess for an answer.
If you want true lasting results then you must send your SOS to those whose lives bear the fruit of righteousness and are in position to get the job done never thinking on how to please man but God.
“Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord, whose trust is the Lord. He is like a tree planted by water, that sends out its roots by the stream, and does not fear when heat comes, for its leaves remain green, and is not anxious in the year of drought, for it does not cease to bear fruit” (Jeremiah 17:7-8).
When you send an SOS trust becomes a big issue. The level of trust in all institutions at this point is at the lowest point. That means, for the most part, people who make up these institutions cannot be trusted unconditionally. How can we honestly trust any individual whose ethics are against God’s? Look at all the heaps of man’s laws and what have they accomplished, other than drowning us with unbearable loads? Instead of rescuing society they are united in destroying us.
The next question becomes a necessity and demands an intelligent answer, whom can we trust? Take to heart the next statement:
The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it? “I the Lord search the heart and test the mind, to give every man according to his ways, according to the fruit of his deeds” (Jeremiah 17:9-10).
Psychiatrists, psychologists, counselors, pastors and other mental health experts may do their best to understand what is in man’s mind and still not totally get the full answer for human behavior and get it all wrong. Why? Because by nature humans are sinful; we are born in sin and our inclination is to do sinful actions. This becomes a heart issue and humans become masters of deceitfulness, here is the crux of the matter and the answers to all our human problems. We humans are desperately sick and in great need of healing from a source greater than man’s. In spite of all the atheist hype about denying God’s reality, we are created in God’s image and likeness. Refusal to this truth does not change the outcome of life. In each generation God continues to search the heart and put the mind to the test to give everyone according to his or her actions.
What we witness is all the corruption and distress of the fruit of man’s ideas rooted in the heart. With all of the above in mind Jesus’ statement makes all the sense in the world:
“But what comes out of the mouth proceeds from the heart, and this defiles a person. For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false witness, slander. These are what defile a person….” (Matthew 15:18-20)
Our only hope for a better future is as we restore God in our lives and institutions, anything short of that will not do. His Word reveals the only way He will heed to our SOS, He has not changed. He expects us to do our part and be responsible for our serious national condition that has become an embarrassment to the world. When we send Him our SOS, requesting help, He tells us what we must do in the process for His rescue:
“If my people who are called by my name humble themselves, and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and heal their land” (2 Chronicles 7:14).
Will it be a Happy New Year? It is all up to you!