Have you ever been so inebriated with YouTube videos that you can't even find your swing anymore? You spent hours scrolling through YouTube videos last night in bed, and each one of them telling you something different. Keep your head down. Don't keep your head down. Channel the club. Stay steep. Now you're standing over the ball in the middle of the first fairway with about 17 swing thoughts in your head, and you top it and it goes about 40 yards. So what do you do? You pull out your phone and you look for another video. Maybe this one will finally fix it. If you've ever done this, ever been down this rabbit hole, keep listening. If you haven't, well, you might not enjoy this episode as much as the rest of us. Every single one of those swing tip videos start with the one fix you'll ever need, or the one move, or this will only take five minutes. Fix this thing now. The one problem you've been working on, I've got the answer to. They are so enticing, so clickable. I have a running joke with my golf buddies that anytime we get on a YouTube link that has a golf swing cure, it automatically alerts the other one, sort of like we're on an explicit website and tells us to notify the other person because they've gone down the rabbit hole again. I'm sure all of us can relate to that a little bit. But what if the problem isn't that we haven't found the right answer? What if the problem is that we're looking for answers in the wrong place? Listen to what Paul writes in 2 Timothy 4, verses 3 and 4. For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine, but after their own lusts, they shall heap to themselves teachers having itching ears, and they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and they shall be turned into fables. That term itching ears, that means we really don't want truth. We want something that feels good, that feels right, something that confirms what we already believe, something that tells us what we want to hear. And Paul says, We'll go looking for teachers who will give us exactly that. And doesn't that sound exactly like our golf game? Or at least the driving range. You hit a bad shot and immediately think, that couldn't have been my fault. You start searching, not for truth, but for validation. We don't want the video that says you need to slow down, fix your fundamentals, and put in some serious work. We don't want the video that says you need to put the driver down and just go work on the putting green for about an hour. We want the video that says, fix your slice in 30 seconds. This is the one move you need. So you quote unquote heap up teachers, video after video, tip after tip, voice after voice, and now instead of clarity, we've got confusion. Instead of improvement, we've got paralysis. Instead of trusting a proven process, we're stuck chasing quick fixes. Now, let's get honest, we do the same exact thing in our faith. We say we want truth, but what we really want is comfort. We want someone to tell us you're fine the way you are. Or you don't really need to change, or God just wants you to be happy. So what do we do? We search, we scroll, we listen, we bounce from sermon to sermon, podcast to podcast, not asking, is this true? but asking, do I like this? It's itching ears. And the danger isn't that we just hear the wrong things, it's that we stop recognizing the right things. Paul says, they will turn away their ears from the truth. Not accidentally, but intentionally. Because truth is often uncomfortable. Truth requires change. Truth exposes things. Truth calls us higher. Now, think about the golfer who actually does improve. It's not the one watching a hundred videos, it's the one who finds a trusted coach and sticks with them. Even when it's hard, even when it feels worse before it gets better, even when the advice isn't what they want to hear. And why? Because they've decided I'm not chasing opinions anymore, I'm committing to the truth. And even our own emotions can play tricks on us. I remember recently I was playing golf with somebody at my golf course, which I know pretty well, and they had a really tricky, fast, breaking putt. And I told them, I said, it doesn't look like it breaks, but it breaks about five feet. And they just could not process that in their head and couldn't believe me. And of course they putted it and let themselves a very, very long, embarrassing putt back to the hole. But we can all relate to that. I mean, we do that all the time with ourselves. We let our eyes and our ears and whatever other empirical data we can come up with talk us out of the truth. So that brings me to my next question. Where are you going for truth? Are you building your beliefs on random voices or popular opinions or whatever feels right in the moment? Or are you rooted in something solid? Because the Bible isn't just one voice among many, it's a foundation. And listen to this promise in Proverbs chapter 8, verse 17. I love those who love me, and those who seek me will find me. Now, that's the difference right there. If you're just scrolling, you'll find opinions. If you're just listening around, you'll find noise. But if you're actually seeking truth, you'll find it. Not because you're lucky, but because God promises that you will. C.S. Lewis says it this way: aim for heaven and you'll get earth thrown in. Aim at earth and you'll get neither. That's the whole game. If you chase what feels good, what sounds right, what fits your swing at the moment, you'll end up with neither. Neither truth or growth. But if you aim at truth, real truth, everything starts to fall into place. Maybe the problem is that we don't need more input. Maybe we need fewer voices, and a better aim. Less scrolling, less searching, less chasing of what sounds good, and more time anchored in what is good. Because whether it's your scolf swing or your faith, if you seek opinions, you'll always find them. But if you seek truth, God says, you'll find that too. So put down the YouTube, stop listening to your friend's advice, quit obsessing over your golf swing that you filmed a hundred times, and start aiming at truth. Everything else will fall into place. Thanks for joining us this week. My name is Mark. This is Shanctification, and keep chasing better.