The hard truth is hard to hear. Pretty obvious wouldn't you think? The truth is that we need others who will tell us the hard truth. Not only do we need people who will point this out, but also people who will help us through it as well. See I can have the tendency to criticize which may point out the truth, but it doesn't help anyone grow. We can also be encouraging to people but fail to confront sin and that doesn't really help anyone grow either. It takes the combination of the two.
I was reading an interview with Matt Chandler (pastor of the Village Church in Dallas) and he said something that I've been thinking about since then. He said "Sins aren't things you do. Sin is about who you are." I try to make it about what I do when in reality is a lot deeper than that. The actions are just a reflection of who I am. We can spend a lot of time trying to correct the symptoms and never really accomplish anything. To grow in my faith it will require me to look hard at who I am and humbly seek God and others to help me. See pride will tell me that I am okay, I just do some small sins. Reality is that I am not okay. Who we are should be a reflection of Jesus. Anything less than that is not acceptable so we need to keep digging a little deeper until we become aware of any sin in our lives.
Those two things collide for me a couple of weeks ago. My friend Lane took the time to tell me the hard truth about sin in my life. Not only did he point it out but he is also helping me try to find a way to change who I am. It is up to me to surrender (my pride, my justifications, my obedience to God) and be willing to let others tell me the hard truth. The hard truth may hurt, but sometimes the courage of a friend to speak the truth may be what is needed for us to grow.
Who do you have an authentic relationship with that can tell you the hard truth? Anyone you need the courage to confront with the hard truth? The hard truth isn't easy, but we haven't been called to an easy life. Real community takes hard work and won't happen by accident. It requires us to be intentional. Intentional in who we invest in and intentional in our openness to others.
2 comments:
LIked Joel's comment on facebook BTW...
Also - Andy Stanley taught in the last week of his "Losing Our Religion" series this past Sunday about something along these lines. It's got me to doing some hard self reflection as well. He talked about how Paul in Romans talked about them as ungodly. That's what we are, standing next to a holy God. He said that we tend to look at 'godly' at this certain level and that 'ungodly' is like a notch below it instead of more like the opposite of godly. I'm botching the context of it - perhaps a download of the podcast from this week for listening at some other time would be a better idea... :) Anyhoo - the entire "Losing Our Religion" series has been a heart-prodder for me.
I agree, Numbers was less than thrilling and Leviticus was pretty repetitive, but like you said, at least it only lasts a couple days! MUCH better than trying to reading over a couple of weeks!
I'm totally with ya on wanting to know what's next but at the same time not wanting to know... scary and exciting all at the same time! I'll keep you guys in my prayers. :-)
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