Ronald Reagan, fortieth president of the United States of America, was known for using the phrase "trust but verify" frequently. He used it in the context of negotiating with the U.S.S.R. for nuclear weapon restrictions, but it can be correctly used in many other contexts too.

In the software development world where I used to work, this concept was used frequently, although it was called unit testing. A unit test is code that tests another piece of code to verify that it does what the programmer thought it should do. A very simple example might be that if you were writing the software for a calculator, then after creating the addition capability, it would make sense to verify that if you give it two and two, that you get the answer four. Over time a project builds up a collection of tests that ensures that the primary software does exactly what is expected from it. This is very reassuring for the technical lead (as I was) when it was time to put the code live and start letting other people use it.

Testing things to ensure that they are what they claim to be is sensible. The scriptures call for us to test the things of the Lord to verify that he is everything that he claims to be, using the analogy of taste testing (Psalm 34:8). The apostle John encourages us to try every spirit, ensuring that it is of God, which is important advice to ensure that we are not allowing ourselves to be influenced by ungodly and worldly sources (1 John 4:1).

Perhaps the most well known example of verifying a command from the Lord is that of Gideon (Judges 6:36-40). When called by the Lord to save Israel, he asked the Lord, by way of verification, to cause dew to be upon a fleece and the ground around it to be dry. The Lord satisfied his request, but then Gideon second-guessed himself and asked that the Lord the next night to make the ground wet and the fleece be dry. Because of the sincere intent of Gideon's heart the Lord satisfied that request as well and Gideon went on to be a powerful military leader within Israel.

Paul, in his first letter to the Thessalonians summarized this nicely as this: "Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." (1 Thessalonians 5:21). There are so many influences in this world, both good and bad, that we are well served to sift them carefully and avoid the worldly or corrupting ones. Seeking out good influences is always helpful, so we should absolutely pair seeking good with avoiding the bad ones. Paul also addressed the matter of our thoughts when he wrote to the Philippians, that we should encourage only our good and pure thoughts (Philippians 4:8).

We live in a fallen world and even knowing that we are only here temporarily while we wait to live in eternity with Jesus, it still behooves us to carefully and deliberately filter out as much of the evil of the world as we can.