Reality Is Your Friend!

 

Most of us spend most of our lives, running away from the truth.   Is it any wonder most of us fib and lie, at some point, in some way?   We don’t tell the truth, because we won’t face the truth -- beginning with the truth about ourselves!  But to quote Jesus in John 8, ultimately, it's “…the truth [that] will set you free…”  (John 8:32).   

No one denied truth more than David after his adultery with Bathsheba and his subsequent killing of Bathsheba’s husband Uriah.  Confronting David with the truth of his sin, the prophet Nathan tells David a parable illustrating David’s sin, but David doesn’t catch that the parable is about him. ‘Pretty bad guy in that story,’ David infers.  Why he “…deserves to die…”  (2 Samuel 12:5).  And with that, Nathan did David the greatest favor ever, when truth is denied.  Nathan told the truth.  Remember the bad guy in the story I just told, Nathan infers.  You are the guy -- “you are the man!”  (2 Samuel 12:7). 

 

The greatest favor we can ever do when truth is denied is to tell the truth.   To say to a friend or loved one -- with love, with compassion -- ‘I understand you think someone else did the deed – committed the atrocity – ‘messed up the moment’ – but I’ve just got to say it:  you are the man!   Because I do love you, care for you -- because I am for you and not against you – I owe you the truth.  

But there’s more:  I’ll walk with you as the truth unfolds – not only the truth of your iniquity -- but also the truth of the gospel – as we walk together, toward the cleansing, redeeming, amazing grace of Jesus! 

You see, Christian counselor Henry Cloud is right:  “reality is… [actually] your friend!...the consequences of deceit are…[always] greater than the ones of truth.”   A favorite Henry Cloud story concerns the Founder of a dog food company who was in utter denial about the declining sales of his dog food. And so the Founder cracked the whip, ordering his graphics department to put more color on the dog food cans -- ordering his sales department to re-double their efforts to get more product on supermarket selves – and ordering his advertising department to triple the number of billboards, coast to coast. Well after 6 months of all this effort, dog food sales were worst than ever!  Furious, the Founder called together his team and threatened to fire them all.  At that a junior, second-string executive, sheepishly raised his hand.  “Yes Jones,” the Founder barked.  Do you have the solution to our ‘dog food dilemma’?  “I think so.”  “Well what is it?!!”  “Sir…the dogs don’t like it…”   

Often we don’t want to hear the truth, especially after years of 'successfully' 'covering it up'; it's painful and disconcerting.  But Jesus is right: the truth is the only thing, that ultimately, will set us free!