Bias 1

Photo by M.Smith

We have all acted upon biases, seen biases and have even read about biases.  Biases are made by how we see the world and understand the world.  We are either for someone or something or against someone or something.  We often think about bias in terms of prejudice, favoritism, a preconceived notion or forgone conclusion.

Biases can be based on mere speculations and perceptions that “look” as fact but are not.

Biases built “on” facts help us rule out counterfeits, lies and deception meant to build up strongholds and arguments in our lives and other people’s lives.  As the saying goes, “Not everything or everyone is as they seem.”

I find biases can be emotional responses or feelings, which can be influenced by our own desires and temporary impulses.  They can be based on our selfishness and even fictitious imagines.   

Biases can be dangerous and yet some are the most beneficial.  

As I scrolled through pictures of abandoned places in this world I saw castles, mansions, cathedrals, libraries, subways, and even cities…

 

These were places where people once lived and worked but now, for one reason or another, they were left behind as useless. 

 

I wondered how these places that seemed so beautiful, wise, beneficial and useful for a time came to be considered “nothing”.

 

I began to ponder the things people construct, study, work, and are educated to great degrees but how it benefits them nothing when they take their last breath.  

 

Why stop there… look at the bodies in which we live in now… how we go to great efforts appease the mortal flesh but do little or nothing to secure the immortal soul within which will live on into eternity in either heaven or hell. 

 

Is life really what we consider “life”?  I find this place and time in which we temporary exist is not really life but where we see if what we believe stands true or not in all the experiences and conditions we face in this place and time.  In other words, God allows us to see our ignorance of what we think “life” is about.    

Think about it…. How can something that isn’t meant to last and is temporary be life?  If the tangibles are to temporary define us in this life what defines us when the tangibles are left behind?  What gives life to the soul?  What gives life to the soul when the tangibles are gone?  What gives reassuring hope to the soul? What gives peace to the soul?  What gives grace and mercy to the soul?  It certainly isn’t things or myself.  

C.S. Lewis wrote: “If you think of this world as a place simply intended for our happiness, you find it quite intolerable: think of it as a place for training and correction and it's not so bad.”

 

This place and time is not so much about the tangibles but the finding and understanding the intangibles in God that are life but when we think about life only in the tangibles we are biased to life itself- who is GOD.

Jesus told him, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one can come to the Father except through me.” Johns 14:6

Where is life?

Jesus said “The thief’s purpose is to steal and kill and destroy. My purpose is to give them a rich and satisfying life.” John 10:10

Where is life?

Then Jesus said to his disciples, “I tell you the truth, it is very hard for a rich person to enter the Kingdom of Heaven.  I’ll say it again—it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the Kingdom of God!” Matthew 19:23-24

Where is life?

Jesus said “That is why I tell you not to worry about everyday life—whether you have enough food and drink, or enough clothes to wear. Isn’t life more than food, and your body more than clothing?  Look at the birds. They don’t plant or harvest or store food in barns, for your heavenly Father feeds them. And aren’t you far more valuable to him than they are?  Can all your worries add a single moment to your life? And why worry about your clothing? Look at the lilies of the field and how they grow. They don’t work or make their clothing, yet Solomon in all his glory was not dressed as beautifully as they are.  And if God cares so wonderfully for wildflowers that are here today and thrown into the fire tomorrow, he will certainly care for you. Why do you have so little faith?  So don’t worry about these things, saying, ‘What will we eat? What will we drink? What will we wear?’ These things dominate the thoughts of unbelievers, but your heavenly Father already knows all your needs. Seek the Kingdom of God  above all else, and live righteously, and he will give you everything you need.” Matthew 6:25-34

Where is life?

I am reminded of a lake.  It mirrors the day and night sky.  It shows the colors and moods of the mountain cradling it.   The lake like our existence is occasionally rippled.  It is ripped by mountain trout living underneath its surface and by the tiny bird taking a bath along its edge.  It is rippled by a tossed stone and the fallen branch.  It is dotted by cold raindrops and brushed by winds and even cools the occasional bear but after those things have gone… the surface returns to its glass like state.   The water “reacts” to what lives within it and what surrounds it.   

How do we “react” to what lives within us and surrounds us?  Are we just a biased as that lake surface- are we at the mercy of whatever befalls us?  

How IS the frailty of the human condition soothed? In what must a man be invested in intimately to focus and encourage and stabilize his soul?  I say this with knowledge of failure and success… God. 

Any other source gives only headache, heartache, shame and hopefully some heavenly correction. 

GOD by his loving grace and mercy should set the sails of our soul and be our course of daily influence.  

HE alone needs to be our bias.  Honestly it takes some time to find our bearings…. but this might help.  I had a friend who was a marine.  One of the trainings was to fall backwards off a speeding boat where it was easy to temporary lose your equilibrium but he found if he just relaxed, his body would naturally float upward towards the surface of the water.   Spiritually it is the same with us.  If we just relax the Spirit of God living us will guide mentally in the right direction and lead us out of dark swirling circumstances around us.

GOD doesn’t want us to succumb to peer pressure or feelings or thoughts or circumstances but be succumbed in HIM.   GOD wants us to be biased to anything that wants to take HIS place in our mind and heart. 

 Proverbs 3:5-6 “Trust in the LORD with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge Him, and He shall direct your paths.”

People may know there is a GOD but the reason they don’t have peace and strength in GOD is because they don’t acknowledge HIM as GOD of their life. They make others and things gods of their life.   And the bible says when people don’t acknowledge GOD he abandons them to their foolish/biased thinking.

^“Since they thought it foolish to acknowledge God, he abandoned them to their foolish thinking and let them do things that should never be done.   Their lives became full of every kind of wickedness, sin, greed, hate, envy, murder, quarreling, deception, malicious behavior, and gossip.  They are backstabbers, haters of God, insolent, proud, and boastful. They invent new ways of sinning, and they disobey their parents.  They refuse to understand, break their promises, are heartless, and have no mercy. They know God’s justice requires that those who do these things deserve to die, yet they do them anyway. Worse yet, they encourage others to do them, too.”  Romans 1:28-32