Facing Truth
“Teach me your way, O LORD, that I may rely on your faithfulness; give me an undivided heart that I may fear your name.” Psalm 86:11
Facing up to the truth always produces a loss of some kind of income, a pastime you enjoy, your image in the community, a wrong relationship, or the companionship of certain friends. Jesus knows a man must risk, but He also knows what’s waiting on the other side: “For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me and for gospel will save it” (Mark 8:35).
When we are confronted with the truth about where God wants us to go in our spiritual journey, we can choose the paths that leads to health, wholeness, and God’s glory. Furthermore, we then have the confidence and humility to keep making the needed adjustments for Him.
God is in the business of confronting us for our benefit, to heal us from our bondage to whatever, guilt, shame, depression, and whatever brings us into self-absorption. These surgeries of the soul require faith in the Surgeon and His promised outcomes. Those who accept “going under the knife” often make the necessary changes to turn things around in their lives.
Winston Churchill once said, “Personally, I am always ready to learn although I do not always like to be taught.” His point is that coming under the direction of another person has its own built-in tension, despite the value of the truth to be discovered from the experience. At least Churchill was being honest. Seeing and accepting truth requires action, but action – doing something – often produces tension.
Father, it is your will that I am free from the bondage of whatever brings me down. Tighten up my belt of truth.