All I can say for sure

 All I can say for sure

By Bobby Neal Winters

I’ve been writing a lot about woodworking and making recorders lately, so I thought I would take a short break and write about something else.

My Bible study is going through the Acts of the Apostles as a follow up to the Gospel of Luke.  So far, the take away from it is simple: Be Bold.

The Apostles, buoyed by the Holy Spirit, were bold.

Being bold is effective.  Being bold puts opponents, puts bullies on their heels.  Authorities, as a rule, and bullies, in particular, are used to having their way.  While they might be used to resistance, they are not used to bold resistance.

People, in general, see someone who is speaking boldly, they interpret that as confidence.  If you are confident in yourself, it is easier for them to be confident in you.

Our President--whatever you may think of him, and I do mean whatever--has internalized this.  He speaks boldly.  He will make a bold statement, and, when confronted, will become even bolder. Love him, hate him, have hope in him, be fearful of him. He has made this work for him.

That’s him.

What can those of us who don’t have his money, his background, his office, his backing do?

One thing I would suggest--and it’s something I need to be careful about myself--is not to speak unless it is something that I am sure about.  That is to say, I need to listen more than I speak.  I need to do research about whatever I am going to talk about.  I need to not say something if I don’t know that it is true.

Implicit in that is knowing the difference between knowing something and thinking it. Here I am getting into territory where I need to take my own advice and not say something I don’t know.  But to speak boldly, I will say there is a continuum between thinking something and knowing it.

Often we say that we know something, and it’s just what we think.  We heard someone who is on “our side” say it, it seems to reinforce “our side” so we repeat it.  We think it’s true, but we’ve given it very little consideration.  We just pass it on.  

We are being used by whoever said it like a piece of paper. (And, for those of you who get the reference, sometimes we are used like a page ripped from a Sears catalog.)

Knowing is more than this.

Knowing requires considering an idea; testing it.  As scripture says, “Test all things and hold on to what is true.”

How does this translate to action?

The most important action is to keep silent when we don’t know; to speak kindly but boldly when we do know.

This is why I’m writing about woodworking and making recorders so much these days and not about politics.

I don’t trust much of the day-to-day information that comes through the various national media outlets, social or traditional.  Each of the two major political parties says the other is full of liars and thieves.  

Ironically, that is just about the only thing they say that I believe.

I feel better about leadership the closer it gets to Pittsburg, Kansas. While we are not all perfect, we are simple enough folk that our flaws are apparent.  I can trust that.

Having said all this, I do have some recorders in various stages of completion. Maybe, just maybe, I will have one that works by the next time I write.

That’s all I can say for sure.

Bobby Winters, a native of Harden City, Oklahoma, blogs at redneckmath.blogspot.com and okieinexile.blogspot.com. He invites you to “like” the National Association of Lawn Mowers on Facebook. Search for him by name on YouTube.