from Living It Daily

In usual fashion, my mind took a turn back to a song from my younger days, but it isn’t a song that is not relevant today. In fact, I find it to be even more relevant in these days than it possibly was in the days it was written.

With all the things going on in the world today, there is a song written a while ago, probably in the early eighties, titled ‘Be Ye Glad’ written by Michael Kelly Blanchard and performed by the group Glad. It has been going over and over in my mind. The opening verse says:

“In these days of confused situations, in these nights of restless remorse

When the heart and the soul of the nation lay wounded and cold as a corpse.”

You may ask me why I am or was thinking about the words of that song.

Well, that is an excellent question and one I am more than willing to try to answer without a great dissertation on religiosity. I make no bones about the fact that I am a ‘Jesus believer’ and I could tell you the many ways trusting and believing in Jesus has changed my life, but I won’t – at least not right this moment.

I guess one reason I have been thinking about the words of this song so much is because of the way the world around us has completely changed over the last several years. That, along with the fact that everything we read, watch, or listen to tries to tell us how we should think rather than us thinking our own thoughts, asking our own questions, and finding our own answers based on truth.

I’m going to step into some dangerous territory here and offer my opinion that social media is one of the biggest detriments to our ability to get questions answered truthfully. Those many outside voices on those platforms may make good arguments about the questions presented, but their answers are not always based on truth. Unfortunately, their good-sounding arguments are more conjecture or opinion. Because of the time we live in, we want fast answers much the same as we want fast food. The faster the answers come, and the less effort required to get a good-sounding answer, or one we might agree with, we tend to go no further in our pursuit of the truth of a matter.

Those voices can make it easy for us to become lazy and no longer seek the actual truth. We just accept what they tell us without reservation because what they say “sounds good.” As humans, we have itching ears that don’t long to seek truth but seek what sounds good to us, and we accept what we are told because it is easier than doing our own search for the truth about any subject. If what we read or hear sounds good to us or aligns with our uninformed thinking, that could mean we are totally misled about any question or answer on a subject we may be interested in or concerned about.

The ancient word for this is “deception,” and it isn’t new. What is new is the speed and volume at which it reaches us. A single misleading post can reach millions before the correction ever leaves the starting gate, even if there is one. That’s not just a media problem — it’s a human problem, and it always has been. Social media has simply handed that old problem a megaphone. There is so much opinion and half-truth presented on those platforms, and it can sound entirely reasonable on the surface, even when it runs completely against common sense and the actual truth of a matter.

Maybe I should say at this point, the easy path isn’t always the best path to find the truth. When we accept someone else’s input without questioning their possible bias or lack of expertise in any given subject, we open ourselves to being misled. In other words, there are two sides to most questions, and we need to research both to be sure we are getting the whole story. We cannot afford to only listen to the side we agree with, or one that totally ignores the other side of the discussion.

That’s ultimately why those words from “Be Ye Glad” won’t leave me alone. Not because they offer a political solution or a social one, but because they speak to something older and deeper. The “confused situations” in that song weren’t written about our specific moment, yet they fit it perfectly. That’s what truth does. It doesn’t date. It just keeps showing up.

When we rely on the same voices and platforms that have already proven themselves more interested in opinion than truth, we are simply choosing a familiar path over a correct one.

Just because we get our answers from a place we have always gotten them does not mean they are still the best source to answer our questions about the things that concern us. Jesus said, “You shall know the truth and the truth will set you free.”  I don’t think I do an injustice to this scripture by slightly re-writing it to say, “We shall know the truth and the truth will set us free.”

The problem is that we listen to other people’s truth rather than seek the actual truth. I don’t have all the answers, and I’m not here to hand you mine. But I do know this: the search for truth is worth the effort, even when – especially when – the world around you seems determined to do that searching for you.

I leave you with the closing lines of that first verse:

“From the grave of the innocent Adam comes a song bringing joy to the sad.

Oh, your cry has been heard, and the ransom has been paid up in full

Be Ye Glad.”

Hey, this is Russ and I’m still Living It Daily… See ya next time…

All views expressed are strictly the opinion of the writer

© June 6, 2026 – all rights reserved

Rusty Norman, LivingItDaily.com

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All music TwoBuckThemes from Mike Stewart unless otherwise stated