Blessed are those who keep his testimonies,
who seek him with their whole heart…
“Testimonies” are official reports of what happened. Or, in the case of God’s witness, since He is outside of time, “testimonies” aren’t limited to describing past events but also cover what is currently happening and what will happen. God describes events or relays His impressions of situations past, present, and future.
Of course there are other impressions of reality, even if they’re not articulated, that differ widely from God’s testimony. For example,
- Anything occurring before the Age of Science or the Enlightenment can’t be that important.
- What’s to be had from any point in time that didn’t coincide with some version of the I-Phone?
- Come to think of it, I wonder if, along with me, the world didn’t also begin on 10/3/75.
- The whole truth consists in what I apprehend with my senses, feelings, instinct, or from Wikipedia. I really feel like this is true.
- Oh, and the Zeitgeist helps nail down reality too. Literally* nails down.
- With no direction and no goal, history stumbles along by means of impersonal or chaotic forces (nature, economies, passions, lucky breaks). How else can you explain so many cat videos going viral?
- What’s at the end? Well, not so sure. But from what I can perceive, the only valid emotions toward the future are apathy or fear.
Into this solipsistic swirl, God testifies of the Original Good Creation, Adam’s Sin, the Call of Abraham, the Crucifixion and Resurrection of Messiah, the Gathering of the Church, and the final Judgment and Restoration. Yes, there are some past, present, and future events which are justly capitalized. And it is by their light that we can make sense of the happenings of our three score and ten years.
Wholeheartedly seeking after God involves the work of hearing and believing the testimonies of God, and then keeping those testimonies in front of us. The strain comes from the fact that countless other witnesses to the truth – and many of ’em more sleek, superficially interesting, gratifying, popular, funny, immediate – clamor for our attention.
*At the start of 2019, “literally” is hot. But not literally.