Lately I've been thinking about what it means to speak the truth in love. I don't think that means to point out other people's shortcomings in a sweet tone of voice. Maybe someone asks my opinion and I actually give it instead of sugar-coating it or telling them what I think they wanted to hear. (Some of us give our opinions way too easily, even when they weren't asked for:) Or maybe I need to confront someone with a problem I have with them. I'm not the most confrontational type, but I'm getting better at speaking up when things need to be said. Still, I think it's easier to confront someone with truth than to have someone confront me with it.
The truth can hurt.
Ok, understatement.
The truth can shatter your whole world, take you from walking safe up on your palace walls to sitting among its rubble and covered in its dust, handfuls of it in your fists. But sitting there brings the realization that it can be rebuilt, that it's meant to be raised up again on the right foundation, Jesus Christ, who is the Truth himself. Like the difference between the houses built on rock and sand. Maybe that house built on sand needed to come down under winds of truth so it could be built again, this time on the rock.
So yeah, truth can hurt, but I love its freedom. Truth can expose, but it makes the darkness become light. Truth is never meant to cruelly humiliate but has love at its heart, desiring something better for us --- sincerity and purity, transparency and a free, true life, the way we were meant to live. Truth desires that we grow up, be set apart, and walk in righteousness before our God. Truth cleanses.
Oh that we would have the humility and maturity to hear truth when it's spoken to us...that we would have the courage to implement it into our lives and apply it to how we live. That's where growth happens and chains fall off. That's where lies are silenced and we learn what it means to walk as He walked. Then love can happen, because there can be no intimacy without honesty.
No comments:
Post a Comment