It’s risky to release strongly held beliefs when we realize they’re wrong. But Tara Westover did it in Educated, Megan Phelps did it in Unfollow, Philip Yancey did it in Where the Light Fell, Mosab Hassan Yousef did it in Son of Hamas. They finally cried, “Enough!” even though they weren’t sure what life after wrong thinking entailed. 

In Philip Yancey’s case, a fundamentalist Christian viewpoint practically ripped him apart, but later, through a series of events and deeper understandings, he began to see. And what he saw was the truth about the Faith, not its counterfeit. He’s now one of Christianity’s most insightful writers.   

There’s a story about a guy named Saul in Acts chapter 9. Nobody could top him in his zeal for killing Christians. He felt he was exactly right, but…he wasn’t. He was blind to the truth. So…God literally blinded him (by a Light) and three days later, “something like scales fell from his eyes.” 

And he could see. 

(We now know him as the Apostle Paul.) 

One of my prayers for our country (and our world) is that the scales will fall from our eyes. That we’ll be able to see. Really see. That we’ll have the courage to change what we’ve gotten wrong. That we’ll not be duped.  

That we’ll take a risk on that Light once we see it.