We Need To Think Before We Assume

The more I travel through life, the more I think that people build up ideologies around topics that make us comfortable.

After talking to some friends yesterday, I found myself asking:

have I done this in my own life?
I began meditating on several topics we discussed, then over the Word of God. Now by meditation I do not mean clearing my mind, but the actual act of thinking about and considering a topic. The Jewish form of meditation (biblical) is when you think, speak, and consider a topic from many points of view. This is truly digging into the subject. This is an art that many people in the world have lost, morphing it into something it was never indented to be.

Many times we tend to just take a topic at face value and leave it at that. The old adage, "if it is written in the paper (or in today’s culture 'online') then it must be true", has become more true in how the average person thinks and moves through life.

We tend to just trust an author, scholar, or presumed expert on a topic and don’t research anything for ourselves.
Ok, now that I have chased that rabbit. I then considered different aspects of what I have learned through life lessions and had been taught, then asked the Holy Spirit for guidance and understanding.

The topic I was considering is not of importance, the issue we need to address:

When we take a teaching or what we’ve learn in our study time and build a philosophy around it because it's comfortable; we make assumptions because of a lack of understanding and lack of reflection on a topic.

Many times we perceive to understand a topic,
but fail to think of the perspective/cultural perspective it was intended to be read in. So our vision is skewed. We have been hasty in our judgment, not taking the time to fully understand not wanting to get out of our comfort zone.

I challenge you today, stop thinking that everything you read or study is the definitive, (as you have understood it), take the time to meditate and marinate on the topic for a time. Give thought to the perspective that the topic was written in. The perfect example is the bible, we tend to try and understand from our current cultural understanding. However, it was written from a Jewish point of view.

So how do we think that our current cultural ideas and ideology’s play any part in decoding meaning from the word of God? Would it not be better served to open the mind of our understanding and learn about the culture that the writer came from. This way we have a better understanding of the context of the writings? Sometimes revelation and true understanding can only come through patience and endurance. That endurance being the proving of one’s self. This proving through the thorough study and meditation of the word.