The Truth Fortune Cookie

We eat a lot of Chinese food. For whatever reason, our sleepy little town of Brecksville has two takeout Chinese restaurants. When the owners of our preferred one went on vacation leaving us in a potential lurch, we simply turned to option B which is almost as good. Anyway, I actually read the fortune cookies and I am fascinated (sometimes) by what I read.

At first blush, this seems to be a fantastic combination of words. We all identify with adversity and we understand that adversity leads us to something, but truth?  I could see how adversity could lead us to strength. I could see how adversity could lead us to God? Does the fortune cookie author mean that adversity could lead us to recognize truth? If so, that is a lame one. Kind of like getting pulled over for going over the speed limit and saying I did not know the speed limit. The officer would say that my ignorance does not excuse me.

Truth is one of those words that more and more get relegated to a point of reference in our culture today. But truth is one of those words that stands alone and needs no context. Further, we are responsible for knowing truth. Adversity is irrelevant. Jesus says "If you continue in My word, the you are truly disciples of mine and you will know the truth and the truth will set you free" (John 8:30-31). The truth is the gospel. The trigger is knowing it and believing it.

In fact, the more I think about it, if Jesus were writing a fortune cookie, he would write "Truth is the first path to adversity". Think of those who have placed their lives on the line for the truth of the gospel.  They were convinced the truth was the truth and some people don't like truth. About 100,000 of them die every year for the truth.