How does he carry out his hell-bent mission? He repeats the same lie he used to con Adam and Eve. He makes each new generation and every individual the same bogus promise that we can be sovereign unto ourselves.

In one sense, we are all far more fabulous than we realize—as eternal beings uniquely reflecting the divine image. In another sense, we are hardly as fabulous as we like to think we are.

The cruelty of our age is peddling the lie to kids that they can create their own moral universes.

In The Abolition of Man, C. S. Lewis captures the point using the language of “instinct.” “Telling us to obey Instinct is like telling us to obey ‘people.’ People say different things: so do instincts. . . . Each instinct, if you listen to it, will claim to be gratified at the expense of all the rest.”

In countless ways, God’s truth has helped me cope with the unpredictability and harshness of life in a fallen world. I’ll briefly share two. First, the supremacy of God allows my emotions to be felt but doesn’t give them the final say. It tames my feelings.

There is no such thing as someone losing their faith. Rather, people relocate their faith to another object.

This all sounds liberating and inspirational, but it is terrible advice.

Second, taking God’s truth more seriously than my unruly emotions gives me opportunities to experience what J. R. R. Tolkien called a “eucatastrophe.” Tolkien coined this term to describe when the unexpected occurs and it is good, “a sudden and miraculous grace,” “a fleeting glimpse of Joy, Joy beyond the walls of the world, poignant as grief.”11

Custom-tailoring gods in our own image is a hallmark of bad theology.