"be able to live honestly and authentically."
"the degree to which we live in truth is the degree to which we are free."
"This is not a family!"
I wanted to shout. I wanted to say the words the burned in my heart late at night or when I read all the books and heard the biblical theologies. All this knowledge, knowledge, knowledge, but God kept using my tears to remind me that all the books and sermons and teachings, prayers, biblical passages and mentors in the world would not change me. Not more serving, not more praying or reading the bible, not more fellowship, not more solitude or reflection, none of that would change me. None of that would give me Jesus. None of that would heal my heart. Those were all tools given to me, but without the thing itself I was just doing, thinking, holding ideals, and tinkering uselessly if nothing was being built. If my heart was not full of God.
“God, how difficult Your thoughts are for me to comprehend; how vast their sum is!”
Psalms 139:17
I have these tears that come so quickly. They rush out the moment truth sets in. They offend my defenses and trample down my ignorance, because they speak the truth. And the truth is painful. The truth is miserable. It's heavy and bad, it's the sin in me, the sin in the world around me, and it's the sin that dishonors the God I claim to believe is all I want or need. It does not make sense!
I present myself to God as utterly helpless. Without Jesus I am hopeless.
Only the grace of God could lift this curse from me.
But where was I? Oh yes. My shouting. "This is not a family!" I am angry at the way we treat one another in this fake pretense to appear fine. You and I are not fine. We piss each other off and we hurt each other everyday, but we keep our mouths shut and pretend we are okay. Is that love? Or is that lying. You might think, well sometimes lying is love, because if we really say what's on our mind it could be received badly. We don't lie because we love, we lie because we are afraid of what the truth will reveal or change! It might change a relationship, approval, respect, or it might reveal our true selfs to others, the ugly self that we hate and try to cover and hide from people because we fear that if they saw what we saw they'd disdain us the way we disdain ourselves when we see our true selves. We fear fighting because it's uncomfortable and inconvenient, or God forbid it might require us to ask for forgiveness! We are scared of being wrong.
To be quiet is not love. To lie by being quiet in order to keep the peace is not love. The bible does not say that. That is your own thinking, not God's. Paul never lied to keep people happy or "keep the peace", he confronted Peter when he saw Peter not walking in the truth of the gospel. If you're mad and you hold it in, you don't show what's really inside, you are lying. I am lying.
It takes effort and a lot of thinking to be able to tell the truth in love. It does not take silence and self resolution, it's not a "me and God work this out" because your problem is not with God it's with another person. The problem between you and God is only resolved in Jesus! Now it's you and your fellow neighbor. It's you and that person. That person! For every person you keep quiet about the truth... you are lying. It took me 3 hours to say what I wanted to say when my friend made me angry. I had to show her my anger because that was the truth, but I also had to do it in love, and it took me 3 hours to ask God desperately where love could be found in my anger. How could I look at this person who just tried to devalue me and in return give her value? Only by the power of God! That's how. We speak the truth in love because God said to, and in His Sovereignty He will decide when conflicts resolve or when we need some more problems to help us grow. Because in His time He works out all things, every struggle and prolonged problem, for our good. We submit to His law that says to forgive, to love, and to speak the truth in love....and if conflict or change ensues, and pain and hurt result, we use those bitter tears to be like children before God our Father. We desperately need Him in every way.
How many of us lie to the very people we claim to love?
Speak the truth and do so in love. But to remain quiet is not love, it is lying.
How can we begin to practice speaking the truth in love?
The same way we practice a new sport or mathematics or speaking a new language. We just do it and mess up and keep doing it until it is perfected.
The hardest people it will be to practice speaking the truth in love are those we claim to love most, our parents, our siblings, our best friends, our children, our spouses, but most of all our selves.
It literally takes your whole life to love someone, it's not "keeping the peace" or pretenses, but love is the truth. Can we tell that person the truth, what we are really thinking? "This is not a family" this is pretense and I'm pissed off because I don't feel loved. So tell me how this is love, explain it to me, show it to me, and then I can ask for forgiveness, but not until I get real love. I must trust God for real love.
“No one has greater love than this, that someone would lay down his life for his friends.”
John 15:13
Taste real love. Speak the truth. People will reject you, belittle you, disrespect you, hate you, and misunderstand you. That's not because of them, but it is for our own practice to be humbled by the fact that we are learning to walk in love. This is a difficult thing to do, and it's the reason I cry every night, but it is the ONLY way that the world will know we are God's own people. Real love. I want real love.
I am confronted by how much I do not speak the truth of what I have in my heart because I'm scared that people will not like it. Because they wouldn't! I don't like it! So why walk toward such a risky and terrible outcome? The system might change, the relationship might go bad, things could change in a bad way! Why speak the truth of who I am with those risks involves? It's crazy. Change is unpredictable.
Also I have a record of being wrong, making speaking up even more undesirable.
But, this is not a family, because this is not love. And if this is not a family, and it is not love, then this--this whatever I'm doing: praying, learning, reading books, listening to sermons, worshipping, reading the bible, teaching, fellowship-ing, crying, journaling, blogging-- all of this is not God.
God is love. Love is only received in truth.
This is not a family and that's the truth! Love never fails, but this ...this is failing. Let the messy practice begin. For the joy set before me of true love. I have no clue what will happen or when or how. But all I know is that I must have love.
I must have the real God.
Jmegrey
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