Honesty continued June 2

I am deeply aware what I promote is not popular. But the truth is that through all my church work and experiences working with others, I haven’t found more than two people I’ve really known who constantly lived basic honesty with everything they did, at least that I'm aware. And both of those were women. I feel sad about not knowing many honest people, partly because I know I’m in the group who hasn’t practiced “telling the truth in love” enough. Something seems wrong when Christians like us do not know how to be honest with each other, let alone practice it every day.

        You see, duplicity, that sneaky system of avoiding truth, not getting caught in our lies, stays the rule of the day. In other words, so long as you don’t get caught, you can break the rules of human and community decency. Christians, especially church members have bought into the lie. We just don’t know how to confront each other in love like the Bible mentions. Our culture and world stays in a kind of darkness because we do not practice John 3:21. “But anyone who lives by truth comes to the light, so that his works may be shown to be accomplished by God. [Christian Standard Bible, Holman ]

        When a discussion occurs about the concept of honesty, I’m still not completely sure we are supposed to “tell all.” Certainly, I don’t think we need to be cruel or harsh just to show how honest we can become. But I do feel we are to practice responding with God’s kind of honesty that keeps us clear and helps others face certain reality. I have had one person say he’d much rather bare the hurt of being told the truth than be lied to his face.

 After all, the unchanging reality exists that Jesus is permanent truth. In other words, Jesus is the prime reality, no sham, pretense, guile, or duplicity in Him. We are to grow and become like Him, not try other realities like money, escapism or government to answer basics and hide our frailties.

        Often when others ask us to be honest about some subject, they really haven’t asked what they mean or what they really want to know. The true question is often underneath the presenting question. I think generally people want an answer to which they can relate or have agreement to set the stage of some kind of communication. For example, say someone asks about those little white lies we make? You see, they really want to know if we have been “guilty of little white lies” and are those ok if they do them. So, there does remain certain hurdles within exact communication that must be overcome if an individual genuinely wants to travel an honesty road.

I feel, within this work lies some hope for the hopeless, light for darkness, freedom for the trapped. I move from the often dirty, moldy earth of the valleys to the crisp white snow of the mountains. This is a pilgrimage of life for truth and I intend to help set you free from some of the prisons you have experienced. I am suggesting that sham and pretense has become paper thin and unnecessary for the true Christian life.
[more to follow]