GETTING THE FACTS

Seth Godin writes, “I’m just going to wait until all the facts are in…” All the facts are never in. We don’t have all the facts on the sinking of the Titanic, on the efficacy of social media or on whether dogs make good house pets. We don’t have all the facts on hybrid tomatoes, global warming or the demise of the industrial age, either.

The real question isn’t whether you have all the facts. The real question is, “do I know enough to make a useful decision?” (and no decision is still a decision).

If you don’t, then the follow up question is, “What would I need to know, what fact would I need to see, before I take action?”

If you can’t answer that, then you’re not actually waiting for all the facts to come in.”

Waiting for the facts is often just a convenient way to procrastinate with some kind of acceptable appearance and self-deception. Godin is right, we will never have all the facts and this is especially true concerning scripture, faith, who is God, life after death and a dozen other subjects… but we have enough facts to make logical and reasonable decisions about these things. Waiting is denial, if not laziness of character and integrity.

If you can believe, all things are possible to him who believes. Jesus