telling the truth

Opening Prayer: Lord Jesus, help us to tell your beautiful truth with our lives before we try to tell it with our words.  For until we embody the truth we proclaim, why would anyone want to listen to what we have to say?

Scripture: Matthew 7:1-6

Journal: What truth do you need to hear today?  How does that affect the way you share the truth with others?

Reflection: Telling the truth always begins with telling it to yourself.  Until we have come face-to-face with our own sin and need and dysfunction, we can never properly enter into the sin and need and dysfunction of others.  There is a deep humility required—a realization of our own extreme brokenness.  That realization creates a right spirit as we enter into someone else’s pain and struggle.

Unfortunately, throughout the centuries truth has been used as a weapon, rather than a help.  But truth was never intended to bludgeon, it was meant to love.  So telling the truth should be something that draws, rather than something that repels.  Or as Emily Dickinson so beautifully put it, “The Truth must dazzle gradually.” 

Therefore, we must first live the truth before we run to tell the truth.  The truth must dazzle with our lives before it can dazzle with our words.  That’s why people were so drawn to Jesus; he embodied the truth he proclaimed.  He was not a living contradiction, and we should not be either.

Pray

Closing Prayer: Dazzle us gradually, Lord Jesus, with your truth, for it is truly beautiful.  And once we have been captured by that truth, give us the wisdom to know how to tell it to others—not only with our words, but with our lives as well.  Amen.