ONE, TWO, THREE, COUNT AGAIN

Facts are a wonderful thing. And the older I get the more I appreciate that numbers can honestly be so easily manipulated. We just have no problem making statistics up for whatever we want. They get bantered around as if they are somehow perfect facts.

That is something, which always ends up in comments made by people who are arguing for or against something. They will toss out some numbers to prove they are correct.

Now what gets even more fun is how often you find that somebody else will provide a whole different set of numbers that prove the exact opposite of what the first person argued. They will be so convincing that their numbers are just as true as the first person.

In the end none of us had a clue. We just sit back and relax and soak it all end, letting the numbers roll around our head. Maybe we believe them, maybe we don't.

What I do appreciate is how the one thing that doesn't always come out of this is truth. That ought to be the priority, but it isn't.

I've seen that so much lately. People using numbers in relationship to some goal or desire to prove their worth.

As long as you don't spend time actually analyzing it, then they can be very impressive. But if you actually dig deep into where the numbers come from you find out that the person compiling them was not that honest in their preparation. That is because they need to prove something. Not let the number add up to what they really mean.

This always makes truth a little less than a priority except in trying to get you to believe them. Which is fine if you are content with whatever is their interpretation.

With God truth is always the most important element. So with numbers like everything else, they are important as they relate to be facts.

And even though with aspects of faith numbers aren't always dependable as a source of inspiration, ignoring them doesn't help either. Pretending the truth is not the truth doesn't help.

Some think it works. So they give truth with numbers the same consideration they do with all other kinds of aspects of spirituality.

None of which ever gets the Lord's blessing no matter how much we like to excuse such behavior. It does get us his attention in other than a good way.

It was like this time in this church where a new pastor tried bragging how the church had doubled in attention since he was there. Only problem was that he was comparing summer attendance with winter attendance. Not winter with winter. In that comparison the numbers hadn't changed. Such are the ways of man who grasp as straws in fact rather than truth.