The Fight For Truth

Lies are loud. They cause your ears to ring until you give into the glorious deception. Lies
squander any open-mindedness towards an idea that doesn’t fit the narrative of affirming
everything you want. Lies convince you that you are in danger of the truth, that the truth will kill you, that you must act against it before it can act against you. Lies manifest into a rhetoric of violence promotion, in the name of progressivism.

Truth, on the other hand, is consistent. It does not speak in tongues. It untangles them. Truth maintains a steady cadence, unrelenting and uncomfortable, until it becomes the only true source of comfort, the only fountain of fulfillment. Truth isn’t afraid to look you in the eyes with an unmistakable courage to tell you that you’re wrong, welcoming you to challenge it while maintaining a respect for your humanity. Truth invites the disagreeing and disapproving mob, and it shakes them to their core until they
have only two options: lie or realize. Lies infiltrate common sense, and bridge the gap between irrationality and evil. They paint a portrait to convince people they are somehow endangered by a man at a table with a microphone and no more than words to say and courage to provide.

The lies turn a truth-speaking man, devoted to reaching across the aisle in order to crack open civil discourse, into an imminent threat in need of immediate disposal. A voice that was never raised in response to those shouting obscenities in his face, but rather one of leveled truth and intellect, was somehow dangerous enough to require heinous inhumanity. A platform that was built upon respectful debate and the exchange of ideas was a threat to the longevity of the lie.
And the lies continued. They always do. When no one could find a way to dispute the man and his reasonings, when no amount of senseless mockery and baseless accusation could cause him to crack, it still didn’t become apparent that the reason for the invincibility of the argument was quite simple: it was the truth.

Truth is neither left nor right. It’s up. And the truth spoken by a brave young man on college campuses was an outpouring of unshaken faith in Christ. An unending courage to share that faith and to bring others to it. So while the crowds were encouraged to openly disagree in a public space, without so much as a lifted eyebrow, let alone a lifted fist, the enemy’s lies snaked their way through. Instead of accepting the open invitation to walk up to that folding table and risk the life of the lie, the cowardice that the lie is built upon hid atop a roof and aimed a weapon of metal and ammo at a weapon much too powerful for the lie to confront head on. The weapon of truth.

But it still wasn’t defeated. Because the lies fire shots. The lies take lives. But the truth saves them. Truth enrages. Truth restores. Truth builds back a country that we were scared of losing, but rest assured, we didn’t lose it. And we won’t lose it, because truth prevails. This is the beginning of something too massive to mute. Too tremendous to contain. Too real to
deny. This is the beginning of an era where we remember what the lies did, and we dedicate ourselves towards the fight that demands to be fought: the fight for truth.

- Paige Rasmussen