Courage

The words that God spoke to Joshua are instructive for us today as we lean on the leadership and the power of the Holy Spirit. Beginning in verse 6 of chapter 1 of the book of Joshua, we see these words:
6 Be strong and of good courage, for to this people you shall divide as an inheritance the land which I swore to their fathers to give them.
7 Only be strong and very courageous, that you may observe to do according to all the law which Moses My servant commanded you; do not turn from it to the right hand or to the left, that you may prosper wherever you go.

I believe that life is comprise of a series of seasons; I have heard it said that there are "divine assignments."  As David Dusek said yesterday, we have been deployed to this world for a long-term deployment - I would submit that within that, we have certain deployments throughout life. Being willing to follow Christ into and out of those assignments, at the right time and in the right way, are key in fulfilling God's overall purpose for us.  To do so, it takes courage and confidence in the Lord.

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For the believer, we can depend on the Lord to give us the courage we need in order that we might walk in the way to which He calls us. And, as Psalm 27 suggests, timing is important as we contemplate a new season:
13 I would have lost heart, unless I had believed That I would see the goodness of the Lord In the land of the living.
14 Wait on the Lord; Be of good courage, And He shall strengthen your heart; Wait, I say, on the Lord!

A recent news story has an all-too-familiar ring.  A journalist resigns because she does not feel at home in the newsroom anymore, trying to swim in a sea of media bias.  There was a piece on the Western Journal website chronicling the resignation of a Phoenix news anchor named Kari Lake. The story quotes from a Twitter post with a video posted to Rumble:

“Sadly, journalism has changed a lot since I first stepped into a newsroom, and I’ll be honest: I don’t like the direction it’s going,” Lake said. “The media needs more balance in coverage and a wider ranger of viewpoints represented in every newsroom at every level and in each position.”

She had been part of an anchor team for 21 years and according to her, she and her fellow anchor had held the top position for most of that era. But, she says, it's time to walk away: "In the past few years, I haven’t felt proud to be a member of the media. I’m sure there are other journalists out there who feel the same way. I found myself reading news copy that I didn’t believe was fully truthful, or only told part of the story...;" she feels like a contributor to "the fear and division in this country."

This did sound similar to the story of a former New York Times editor who resigned last year for what seems like similar reasons. CBN.com reported:

Bari Weiss, the gadfly journalist despised by her progressive cohorts and social media’s staunchest liberals, has resigned from her editor post at The New York Times.

Following her exit from the increasingly progressive outlet, Weiss issued an absolutely blistering resignation letter, which she posted to her website. In it, she noted she was hired in the wake of the 2016 presidential election as part of an effort to offer content better representative of the views of Americans who don’t hold to the Times’ progressive ideals.

She wrote in the letter: "a new consensus has emerged in the press, but perhaps especially at this paper: that truth isn’t a process of collective discovery, but an orthodoxy already known to an enlightened few whose job is to inform everyone else." She added that "Twitter is not on the masthead of The New York Times. But Twitter has become its ultimate editor."

Weiss continued, "I was always taught that journalists were charged with writing the first rough draft of history. Now, history itself is one more ephemeral thing molded to fit the needs of a predetermined narrative."

Neither of these stories have an apparent Christian faith element - Weiss is, according to a ReligionNews.com piece, a committed Jew, but there are certainly some principles we can consider relative to this series of events.

First of all, we can explore a familiar theme: media bias.  Now, there is a difference between objective journalism and opinion journalism. Both are perfectly acceptable - after all, the news element of The Meeting House and the stories that I cover could be considered opinion journalism. But, opinion journalism masquerading as objective journalism is a problem, and that appears to be the real issue with these ladies.  And, perhaps they have decided to take off the mask.  We have to be so discerning regarding our sources of information, because a worldview counter to our own is being sold to us as Christian believers, and we are being played.  

This is how false teaching enters the Church.  Rather than believe the Bible, I would say that inadvertently people accept the philosophies of this world and adapt them into their practice of faith.  Discernment is a key - and that is built as we shore up our Holy Spirit "truth detector" in an age of "truth decay," a term that I used yesterday in quoting from a journalist, ironically enough whose objectivity and accuracy have been found wanting.

So Kari Lake and Bari Weiss are models of characteristics and mindset that we can adopt into our lives: to be courageous.  We should be willing to stand on Biblical truth - it's not a sin to be opinionated, but we have to be careful that our views are governed by the Word of God. It takes courage to walk away, and there is a cost involved, perhaps.  But, if you are being obedient to God and allow Him to take you into a new season - and that could mean career or other area of life - if it's at the right time, there are blessings from knowing you are in the will of God?  So, is God calling you to make a change, a step in faith, or perhaps telling you to be content where you are in a difficult time period?  We can depend on the leadership of His Spirit to show us the way He would intend.