Set Your House in Order

Do you ever find yourself seething in anger when you watch the news and see someone getting away with false statements full of partial truths and just plain mistruths, lies? Maybe it’s a news story that one network is covering fairly and another network is mispresenting so it is full of inaccuracies while other networks are ignoring the story completely.

In my last post I wrote about how truth has now become subjective opinion called ‘My Truth.’ Not to sound like an old man, which I am, but I do remember watching network news programs with Chet Huntley and David Brinkley, Walter Cronkite, Peter Jennings, Howard K. Smith and others. There may have been some personal bias on the part of each reporter but those voices were respected for simply presenting the news. Opinions were left to editorials and were identified as such: opinions.

I used to get really aggrieved when I would watch TV network news. How did news become so severely biased? In a way I took it as an affront that those presenting the “news” had such little respect for my intelligence, thinking I would believe whatever they told me.

I would have the same reaction when I would see people committing crimes that in the past would get them arrested and put in prison. Now even if they are arrested they are frequently released without bail and continue to commit crimes. How can this happen?

I think this all gets back to the question of ‘what is truth?’ In a society where the ideas of right and wrong are so fluid and even ambiguous it may be expected to have even the news presented in such a way that you aren’t always sure who and what to believe.

I still am upset when I see this happening. I have a similar reaction when someone appears to do something that should be obviously wrong and yet they get away with it. Where is the justice in that?

When I have these responses I often hear my mother’s voice say, “Offer it up.”

I’ve written about her using that term frequently when I was a child and had a hurt or disappointment. She saw “offering it up” as our taking part in Christ’s “redemptive suffering”.

I also realize how patient God has been with me over my life when I did something that maybe aggrieved someone else, perhaps even God Himself. He has given me the opportunity to apologize and make amends to Him so I need to remember He offers that that same opportunity to others.

I have to remind myself, each one of us will appear before Him after we die. If we have failed to clear our slate before that time, He will clear it for us, though not necessarily in a way we will like.

Part of me looks at the injustices I see in life, truths that have not been respected, acts that appear to have been committed and not been brought to justice, as an affront to me and to others who are trying to do what is right. Then I remember the injustice that Jesus endured for me and for all of us.

My response to these injustices has changed for the most part. I now look at these things as something I need to leave to God to handle. He will judge all of us. I hope all will go to heaven. I do not want anyone to go to hell. Worrying that justice is served in this life should not be my primary concern.

My responsibility in life is to make sure I discern the truth when I see and hear conflicting statements. That discernment process includes seeking the truth, evaluating what I hear and praying for God’s assistance to know the truth; to be able to recognize the truth and the lies in what I see and hear.

I must remember Isaiah’s warning to Hezekiah, “Thus says the Lord: Set your house in order; for you shall die.” (Isa. 38:1) I need to heed that warning myself.

Greg Gillen

qop-gg@sonic.net

© 2025 Greg Gillen

August 19, 2025

Scripture/Revised Standard Version Second Catholic Edition

Image/Hezekiah: A Deathbed Recovery/Millersport Covenant Church