A Stopped Clock?

 

“Vincent,” my younger son said to his older brother.  “You know that even a stopped clock is right twice a day?”

I have heard this sort of statement before and while it is a kind thing to say about stopped clocks, it doesn’t seem to mean much – particularly not in the digital age.

“Yes, Elliot,” Vincent said.  “But unless you also have a clock that works, how would you know when your stopped clock is right?  I don’t think it really matters that it happens to be right two minutes out of the day.”

These days there are a lot of people who are free with their thoughts and opinions on things ranging from the COVID to vaccines to the economy.  Working through the ideas contained in the various memes and posts that bombard me every day that I open Facebook has brought a few things clearly into my mind.

It isn’t enough to be right occasionally.

A stopped clock is right twice a day.  There are still 1438 minutes out of each day that it is incorrect.

I think about this in terms of COVID.  A year ago there were people posting about how H1N1 was worse than COVID and criticizing the people who were predicting hundreds of thousands of deaths. 

Flash forward 12 months and there have been 550,000 deaths from COVID in the United States and while hopefully the worst is behind us, I wonder how many people have owned up to the fact that they were wrong -- dead wrong -- about how bad things would get. 

I have been writing about COVID over this last year and honestly, if I read over the different things that I posted, I think they have aged fairly well.  Certainly COVID got worse than I expected, but the things I shared are still correct, even though I have at times been attacked for sharing them.

I don’t say this to “take a victory lap,” but simply to say that we need to be careful what we share and whose words we repeat.  Some sources are wrong more than they are right.

We cannot be experts on everything, but the Internet is an easy place to do a bit of research on things we post and share.  It is worth making that effort.

There are simply too many "stopped clocks" on Facebook and not enough that are consistently accurate.

It is dangerous to use “God” language.

“The Word of the Lord came to me…” is a scary way to begin a statement.  I don’t say many things with this sort of preface.  If I say that God revealed something to me, whatever words that follow must be the truth, nothing more or less.  Even if I do not initiate a post that says this sort of thing, if I repost something that claims to be the Word of the Lord, I am putting my stamp of approval behind that prophecy.

It is OK for me to be wrong.  I have been before, I am sure I will be again.  It is not OK for me to put words in the mouth of God which prove false.  “God is not a man that He should lie…” 

I read a few too many messages before and since the election that claimed to have divine inspiration for events that did not come to pass.  Those who posted or reposted these things fit the category of false prophet.  We know that the judgment for false prophecy is harsh.

The focus of our message should always be healing, not foretelling.

I am afraid that many read through the prophets in the Old Testament and conclude that they were a group that focused mostly on predicting the future.  When I read these writings I do not see this at all.

The prophets were focused on justice.  They were intent on seeing the rifts that had developed between God and His people healed.  They wanted to see the people of Israel behave towards the poor with love and mercy.

They did bring messages of judgement, but that judgement was almost always conditional.  “Turn from your wicked ways and I will heal this land,” was the message that they carried to the people.

The fact that judgement finally came does not change that the prophets were focused on seeing that those ways change and judgement averted.

In the same way, the goal of what we share should be to see mercy and justice prevail.  Our ultimate goal must be to see the hearts of men and women turned to God.

It is important to share truth – even when it doesn’t jive with our own biases.

All of us have biases.  In our hearts we have ideas about things that work in our society and what things don't work.  Websites know this and they serve up a beautiful buffet of opinion and "fact" pieces specifically tailored to our preconceived notions.  This is not enough.

It is important that we listen to others and hear the truth they share about their experience, and are willing to accept it as valid.

More than that, we must be willing to share things that speak truth into our lives, even when that truth shakes our world view.

Our focus must be on God more than ourselves. 

If there is one thing that is clear from the lives of the prophets, it is that they were not focused on themselves, but on the One who was giving them messages.  They were not in it for the image they would gain or money they would make from the career of prophet.  The true prophets suffered in both of these respects.

These days, everything is different.  Everyone who shares something seems to be getting something out of it.  Maybe they are gaining money from clicks on their page.  Perhaps they are getting the opportunity to write a book expressing their views or profit from speaking engagements.  Sometimes they are pursuing the transitory “fame” that comes from having a post seen by a few thousand people.

We call these things “ulterior motives.”  Very few people are honest about why they are sharing the things they do.  

It is important for each of us to evaluate why we post and share things.  It is worth the effort to stay positive and bring hope and love to other's lives.

All of this is a long way of asking each to think about what sort of messenger they are.  We must speak truth and listen to others who speak truth.  We need to speak that truth with love and focus most of all on the One who gives messages.

Only then can there be healing in our society and the world.