Hello... after almost 4 years, another post... I guess I'm nothing if not methodical... but most of all, I'm nothing if I'm not in God's hands.
Truth. The whole purpose of creating this blog, years ago, and the reason behind all that has transpired over the last four years, is the search for truth.
I have slowly, and sometimes painfully, been discovering the truth, bit by bit, over the last few years. The truth about myself has been the most painful at times... but I would not have myself living a comfortable lie.
Today's post will be all about truth. Some would say that truth does not exist... but are they sure that's true? Ah, the conundrum. That is self-defeating logic at its finest... and yet people choose to rest on those rotting laurels as if they're victorious... "what's true for you may not be true for me" they say... and while I like ketchup, they may not... but the truth is still, even to them, that I like ketchup. So while opinions may differ, truth is still truth... and yes, it is possible to know that truth... and, as I've discovered in my own life... "the truth shall set you free."
My thoughts are circling around and around right now, but at the moment they rest on what I'll call self-truth... being honest with yourself... admitting the truth about yourself, to yourself. Here in North America, we are experts at fooling ourself. We choose to believe blatant lies rather than seek the truth, simply because it's more convenient, comfortable, or popular. I'll look at those three rationalizations in a moment, but first I want to address the fact that we ARE fooling ourselves. What is the point of doing so? What of value does it gain us? Are we "gaining the whole world and yet losing our soul"? And if we don't want to be taken in by others, why would we let ourselves get away with bamboozling us? Don't we want to improve? Don't we want freedom? Don't we want an actual life, rather than the unreasonable facsimile we provide ourselves with? Now back to the rationalizations:
1. Convenience: Since when has anything worthwhile been convenient? The struggle is important, it tells us that what we're working toward is important, because it cost us something.
2. Comfort: Our comfort in the moment seems to be all-encompassing... but if we slept everyday, never going in to work, just because it was comfortable, sooner or later we'd have to realize the truth that not going in to the job means no job, which means no pay... which means no bed to sleep in. Not very comfortable in the end.
3. Popularity: BOOOO! What child hasn't heard his or her mother ask, "If all your friends were jumping off a cliff, would you do it too?" I'm not talking base jumping here either.
It's easy to point at our society and say, "Ah, but it's not my fault! Our society values these three things, often above all else. I'm merely a product of my environment." You know what? I hate that about our society, although there are some advantages to it... and I do like being catered to... being comfortable... being popular... but so many lies are pumped out at us based on those things that it makes me sick. Our culture says things like, "Everyone's beautiful... as long as they buy our new beauty product!" or, "Wear our body spray, and everyone will be attracted to you." or, "This new truck will give you self-confidence." What a load of bull! But I won't get into ranting about our society any further at the moment... right now I'm still talking about self-truth.
It would be easy to blame our society... but we are the ones who let ourselves be deceived. We choose to shut off our minds, remove our brains, and simply believe the information we are fed without testing to see if it's in fact true. Why do we reject the hard questions? Because we fear the answers we may get... especially about ourselves. Well, since I know that God loves me, and I've been discovering how deep and abiding that love is, I've been learning that "perfect love drives out all fear". That includes, slowly but surely, the fear of finding out uncomfortable truth about myself...
The truth about me is... I need improvement. We all do, and anyone who says, "I'm fine where I am" is lying to themself. I know that as I have been seeking God, He has been bringing about changes in me that I could have hardly hoped for, and I certainly wouldn't have changed if I couldn't admit that I was wrong. That's why He started by helping me learn how to admit when I'm wrong. I used to act as though I was always right... since I've been learning to admit when I'm wrong... and be honest with myself, and about my faults, and learn from God how to improve... I've had my best friend tell me that I'm always right... as a compliment. Now knowing what I know about myself, I can only give glory to God for that... you see, I'm being honest with myself.
I don't have the time or space here to get into all the awesome ramifications of living a life of personal honesty (a better term, I've decided, for self-truth). Let me just say that no matter how complex life gets, it's always simpler when you're always honest. You don't ever have to remember which lie you told to who, who thinks what about you that you need to keep up pretenses about, that sort of thing. And the obvious place to start practicing honesty is with yourself. When you practice honesty, you also desire it, and it only makes sense to tell yourself the truth. It might be hard, but you're doing it for your own good.
Let me wrap up this post with a lot left to say... I don't know where to begin, or even if I will on this blog... but let me leave you with a challenge to be honest. Let your word be your word, even and especially to yourself, be honest with God, others, and yourself. You know that you deserve the truth... so why not give it to yourself? Why not challenge your preconceptions and the things you've always assumed... and if they are true, they can hold up to that kind of test, but if not... let the lies fall by the wayside.
My prayer for anyone who reads this is that they would truly live life... and that they would live life truly.
Andrew
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