It was one of those moments of enlightenment. As I saw the words—words that had been displayed from every media—there flashed upon my mind another literal meaning: “An Inconvenient Truth??” Of course that is the title of a book by Al Gore on global warming. It is inconvenient to be reminded that we must give up our extravagant use of fossil fuels or bring to a quicker extinction future generations on this whirling globe our Creating God has provided for us to live on. But, of course, He didn’t place us here for eternity anyway. Truly, “this world is not our home, we’re just a passin’ through.” Perhaps, the span of time He intended for the earth to exist may be near the end. Then, global warming or no global warming, the prophecy of a super warming will be fulfilled: “The heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall be dissolved with fervent heat, and the earth and all that is therein shall be burned up.” (II Peter 3:10)
An inconvenient truth? Almost all truth is inconvenient, come to think of it. That’s why so much is disregarded. That’s why “Strait is the gate and narrow is the way that leads to life and few there be that find it.”
“For the flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; for these are contrary—one to the other; that you may not do the things you would,” says the Spirit itself in Galatians 5:17. “You cannot do the things you would like to do” would be another way to express the thought. We find it inconvenient to be restricted in what we can say. It is inconvenient not to satisfy the flesh when it urges us to fill an unholy appetite. It is inconvenient for our speech to be so restricted when it would be so satisfying to use language that would vent our anger. In religion it is inconvenient to do things the way God says, rather than the way we want.
The journey began when our forefather and his spouse, Adam and Eve, gave in to the “lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life.” And God nailed the problem when He told Satan, “I will put enmity between thee and the woman and between thy seed and her seed. He shall bruise thy head and thou shalt bruise His heel.” (Gen. 3:15)
Every day that we live there is a struggle within us pitting the way we want to do things against the way God wants us to do things. They are not the same. God told us that when He said, “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith Jehovah.” (Isaiah 55:8) If we are not aware of a struggle between wanting to do things our way and doing them God’s way, it means we have given up the struggle and are doing them the easy way. In reality, “The way of the transgressor is hard.” (Prov. 13:15) But to our shortsighted eyes, the way of truth seems to be inconvenient.
