I’ve often voiced my opinion about the news media and how it’s changed over the years. Gone are the days of Edward R. Murrow, David Brinkley and Walter Cronkite. Who even remembers Paul Harvey? He was the one who put his own spin on the news of the day – perhaps leading up to our current bend in journalism, but he always had a moral to the end of his story. Today we have Wolf Blitzer, Tim Russert, George Stephanopoulos, Harris Faulkner, Sean Hannity and a plethora of others. Our television sets our filled with news outlets and hundreds and thousands of opinions. By the time it reaches our screens and our eyes and ears, we don’t always know what to believe.

I recently saw a photograph of a group of people standing in a food line during the Great Depression, when the only place the hungry could turn to was government funded meals. I thought how easy it would be for us to become a nation of sheep and how we are still relying on our government to take care of us. With each passing year, it seems that the endless wallet of Washington is not only a necessity, but a open invitation to spend someone else’s hard earned dollars.

The same is true of our own government. It has become so convoluted over time, that the numbers of individuals working for the government are staggering. There’s bound to be corruption in this portion of America, just as there is in any other facet of life. The average American is the guy who works hard to care for his family’s needs. He spends time cooking on a grill in the backyard, cuts his grass, goes to church and may have a beer with friends. He is not really knowledgeable on the workings of the country other than what he sees on his computer, phone or TV set. He didn’t go to school to study politics or journalism. Maybe he never got a college education. He’s mostly interested in his own family unit and how they are affected by their government and the news of the day.

When we become so reliant on the government to foot the bill, we’re in fact being led like sheep to the slaughter. When we depend on the news to be nothing but the truth, we’re also setting ourselves up to fall off a cliff. So is it better to hide from both those entities and not get involved to save us from becoming depressed and hopeless? I’ve been an advocate for limiting time spent watching the news. Still being uninformed isn’t really the answer either. We need to trust someone for the truth. We owe it to ourselves to search for it. We can’t expect someone else to think for us – to form our opinions – to become sheep. God gave us a brain so we could come up with solutions – find a better way of doing things – learn what is true and become discerning in life.

As soon as we let go of that thought process, we’re taking one step closer to the end result – a human LAMBSLIDE, right into a pit of destruction. Trust in God and His ability to bring order from chaos. Trust in yourself to search for the truth without the influence of others. You will find that truth in God’s own Word to us – the Bible.

 "Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me."  John 14:6 ESV