Casandra Martin

The boys settled in close to each other. Seated on the couch, they had turned on an animal show on one of those nature channels on television. I was cooking dinner while enjoying the giggles that erupted over the eating and sleeping habits of different creatures.

The narrator shared fact after fact as different animals paraded across the screen. All was going well until the show started talking about the evolutionary process that brought these animals into being. I looked at the screen, the two boys sprawled on the couch, and said out loud, “That’s not true!” The boys looked at me with puzzled expressions. “We know the truth,” I said. “Who made those animals?” “God did!” they both shouted. We talked about creation, God’s power, His perfect timing, and the way animals declare His glory.

We continued to watch the show. We might have turned it off, but I wanted to teach the boys an important truth. You can talk back to the television. You don’t have to sit in silent agreement with the screen. When something is not true, speak God’s truth. Say it out loud. For the rest of the show, they listened more carefully. When something came on that needed correcting, they told each other God’s truth. They held each other accountable, empowering each other to be proactive in the face of the world’s lies.

My Jesus Resolution today is to talk back. The world tries to bully Christians into silence. It doesn’t care if I agree with its lies. It just doesn’t want me speaking up about the truth. I listen to the television, the radio, or the movies and too often am silently passive about what I hear. No one in Hollywood is going to hear me talk back to the television, but the truth will resonate in my soul. My children will hear it. My friends will know. And each time I talk back and stake my claim in the truth, the darkness loses a little bit of its power in my corner of the world.