Do you think you could pass a 5th grade history test? Do you think you could still do it if you were drunk?

That’s the question “Drunk History” asks. The Comedy Central series (based on a series of Youtube videos) shows what happens when drunk adults try to retell the history lessons they learned in elementary school. The results are jumbled, bungled, and hilarious. (And often full of explicit language, although this clip is clean).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R-mU4pf3ywU

(Click Here if you can’t see the video above)

When you pass a story down from one person to another, and especially from one generation to another, details tend to do one of three things: they either become more or less extraordinary than they were originally, or they get omitted completely. (Especially when you get alcohol involved.)

Our memories are fickle and fleeting. It’s hard to remember all of the details of history exactly as we were taught, especially as time distances us from the lesson. Sometimes though we just want to make a story sound even more amazing than it actually was.

TMZ, ESPN, CNN – all of these and many other outlets have made lucrative business off publicizing stories that did not quite play out exactly as they did in real life. Their billions are built off rumors and unidentified sources.

Still we often choose to believe what we read without doing any of our own research.

It’s easy to do this with celebrity gossip, a pop culture industry that we turn to when we want to turn our brains off. How can we really do the research on what Angelina Jolie said off the record in the first place?

The danger in life is blindly accepting what people tell us about the things that matter.

People usually don’t come up with their own ideas about faith, not at first at least. Most people hear about God for the first time not through their own research but through the words of someone else – a parent, a friend, a teacher.

I think we often blindly accept these things we hear about God without doing the research to see if we actually believe them. If we really want to have a relationship with God, the time must come when each of us decides what we actually believe.

What we believe about God should influence our every action. If you believe God to be all He says He is, then that belief should color the portrait of each day.

So what do you believe? Is your faith based on the unresearched, drunk legends you’ve heard from others? Or is it based on what you’ve discovered for yourself?

Whether you realize it or not, you’ve already made up your mind with the way you live your life every day. Many of us wake up in a hangover from life, burnt out on our problems and pains, unwilling to take a moment to consider what we truly believe.

Try considering this sobering question today, and you might see your day in a different way:

The question is not, “What have you heard about God?” It is not, “What have you learned about God?” The question every person must answer is, “What do you believe about God?”

If you decide that it’s a bad thing to worship God, then choose a god you’d rather serve – and do it today. Choose one of the gods your ancestors worshiped from the country beyond The River, or one of the gods of the Amorites, on whose land you’re now living. As for me and my family, we will worship God. (Joshua 24:15)