What Do You Know?

What Do You Know?                 1-30-2013

 

 

Many years ago there was a moment when a business acquaintance asked me a question.  The young man was merely making conversation when he asked, “What do you know, for sure.”  I gave what I felt was a clever come back, “Not much really…but I know a lot of things…maybe…!” 

The truth of that statement has haunted me for years.  What do we know…for sure?  What are the absolute truths we carry with us each day?   So much we know has been taught to us.  We know many facts because someone told us.  I for one have never seen Mount Everest…I believe it is the tallest mountain in the world.  Yet I will never go to Napal with a tape measure and determine for myself just how tall that mountain truly is.  We have been told it is tall and take that as fact…verbatim.  But what if that and thousands of other bits of information are fabricated gibberish…How would you and I know?  There remains the rub…all the things I know…maybe!

But that’s alright.  Humanity shares much information, and we consider it truth until something proves it is not.  It is enough to know that there are seven time zones in Russia, that Australia is in the Southern Hemisphere and Madagascar has many species found nowhere else.  That the Nile flows north and the Mississippi begins in Minnesota.  And that there are millions of facts that fill libraries and attempt to overfill our minds…That’s alright!

But that is not what the question asks.  It asks about the for sure part.  “What do you know…for sure?”  Few take the time to consider that question.  And I expect fewer have taken the time to come up with an answer…but I have.  The answers I have assembled may not be the answer that fits you.  But the things I know for sure are:  That water is wet, the sky is blue and my parents loved me…that there is a God in Heaven and Jesus has the power to save me from myself.  And when push comes to shove there is little else that matters!

What do you know for sure? 

(369 Words)