Truth & Jesus - Front and Center
Truth…….
Real truth……..
Does the hope of TRUTH stir anything deep inside you? …..something akin to peace, security, rest, or h-o-m-e? Perhaps not any home you’ve known before…perhaps instead a home you long for, dream of….perhaps a home that is being made ready for you (if you hold Jesus in you) ….
The opposite of truth is falsehood. Confusion. Lies. Doubt and division and a lostness that can’t be righted by any map. No GPS can find TRUTH. It can find a geographic location, usually, and yet, one wrong turn and we’ll hear the words, “recalculating”. I find it wildly disturbing that a GPS will sound off boldly when we make the slightest error, but we can walk right off the pathway of Truth and not hear the “still, small voice” sounding off an internal alarm. Oh but that’s the game of the enemy, satan. To pull us off the course of Truth and consecutively intensify distractions, so we don’t even notice we’ve gone off course until we find ourselves stuck in a cul-de-sac of confusion, wondering, “How in the world did I end up here?” Sometimes surrounded by simple doubts; other times we feel as though we’re drowning in lies, trickery, betrayal and deceit.
The contrast between truth and untruths. I see it when I see light pressing into darkness. When I see stars shining in the black night sky. When the morning sun rises over the horizon line — and what had been shaded becomes clear; what had been hidden is revealed.
I see it in people. Some people have lived in places of confusion for so long, they begin to believe that insecurity is normal — that the faulty “recalculating” feeling in their gut is the plight of life. So they create their own reality authored by their own logic. Children growing up in their care have a foundation of confusion under them. Teenagers raised in those fields have wandering feet and eyes searching for something better. Adults still living in those places struggle to be pure and upright in almost every aspect of their lives. It’s the dark pit of confusion that will not look beyond the wall it has built.
Ahhhhh. But Truth. Truth brings fresh air as its light rushes in.
Christ said it so cleanly and beautifully:
I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.
John 8:12
Recently I had a long, life-giving conversation with a dear soul. They had found themself in the “valley of the shadow of death” over and over again. No one was actually dying, but instead l-i-f-e and j-o-y were being executed over and over again. Where what could have been— was disappearing — and what should have been was harder and harder to see. We discussed wrong turns in life, confusion over unfortunate destinations, and searching for the spot in life when the road-signs had been too vague or even unmarked…..and that the ending result took them to places they never wanted to go and cost them more than they ever wanted to pay.
Amazingly, as we talked, clarity of truth stepped out of the shadows and the villain in the story was exposed. It was a shocker. But truth exposed and revealed where the wrong turns had begun…….and the resulting destinations became less shocking.
We learned something together. The culprit in this dear person’s life had been their “instinct”, their logic, their gut-feeling. The thinking mechanism inside their head that compelled them to observe some details (and miss others), see some possibilities (and ignore others), assess easier ways forward (refusing to consider the more challenging ones), and come to conclusions (based on spotty input at best). Decisions were made in these ways, within their own private grey-matter-space. It seemed right in the moment….well sort of. Actually right or wrong were not strongly considered. Instead what “made sense” to them became the best option. So they had made their plan, and often times within a few seconds or minutes….they had implemented their logical plan. Logical. Their own logic had compelled them to turn this way or that — rarely noticing that the decision would change the trajectory of their remaining days and nothing could be done to alter the outcome of their logical decision.
Our hearts and thoughts, our logic, will misguide us……sadly, we people, so often, refuse to hesitate long enough to click pause on our own thoughts and run to the Father for His.
Proverbs 16:9 – The heart of man plans his way, but the Lord establishes his steps.
Proverbs 15:22 – Without counsel plans fail, but with many advisers, they succeed.
Proverbs 19:21 – Many are the plans in the mind of a man, but it is the purpose of the Lord that will stand.
See that little three letter word in the middle of each amazing verse? The “but” that connects what is better to the ending of what is lacking. It holds the key.
But the Lord….. But with many advisers……… But the purpose of the Lord…….
“But” is the perfect PAUSE word. Wisdom guides us to employ it in our grey matter. Not as a stumbler to keep us from moving forward in life, but instead as a reminder to pause and ask the Lord, seek wise counsel, and allow the best options to unfold.
Joseph in the Bible, had 11 brothers, one was younger than him and 10 were older. His story is found in Genesis, chapters 37 - 50. There are so many valuable things we can learn in those 14 chapters, but for this reach-for-more-of-Jesus, let’s look at the logical decisions his brothers made that deeply wounded many and changed the trajectory of lives. The 10 older brothers were jealous of Joseph, unfortunately their father Jacob had made no secret that Joseph was his favorite son. This favoritism was not the result of any particular quality of Joseph’s, it was strictly because he was the firstborn son of Jacob’s favored wife, Rachel. Nothing could be done to change the heart of Jacob on this matter, it was a hard reality for the older brothers. However, here’s where their logical conclusions led them down a path that would lead to enslavement, lies, deceit, and secrets. Please read the story in its fullness if you never have before, let it teach you one of its many lessons.
Joseph’s 10 older brothers sat together, compelled by jealousy, frustration, etc., and made a decision that would forever shadow the story of their lives. They have been dead for thousands of years…….and yet we today still know what they did and why they did it. They made their plans based on their hearts and minds, and did not pause to seek counsel from anyone wiser than them. For the rest of their days, they knew, in their hearts what they had done. They had thrown their brother Joseph into a dry well, and only pulled him out to sell him. They sold their own brother into slavery, then lied saying that he had been killed. They watched their father grieve; their logic held their tongues.
Their logic, their reasoning, their instinct compelled them to make these decisions. They allowed no “but” to hinder them and the reality of rough hands dragging their brother away could be ignored as they bowed down to their own way of thinking.
I’ve had this conversation with so many good-hearted people. The value of pausing, allowing the “but” moment to linger; to give us time to breathe and seek God, ask God, pray, and ask for wise guidance from Godly mentors, the value of it is immeasurable — and life-giving!
This value of the tiny b-u-t (without an extra “t” — haha!) — (just had to say it :)
It gives us time to breathe AND break-up with ourselves. To no longer “go-steady” with our own logical conclusions. To realize that without the guidance of God being considered or reached for, our logic will fail us.
The older we get, the more we can look back and see the moments when our logic compelled us to make decisions that led us to places we wish we’d never gone. The younger we are the less aware we are of just how wrongly our thoughts can guide us. Oh but wise mentors can grow us into future wise mentors.
A wise mentor, a mature God-seeker, a reader and doer of the Word, can make such a mighty difference in our lives. They will share what they’ve learned and help us think in higher ways. They’ll remind us that within the Holy pages……we find the God-way. We’ll realize our need to break up with ourselves and go steady with HIM.
John the Baptist said it this way, “He must increase, but I must decrease.”Seek out the way that Jesus guides — and break up with our own instinctual, flesh ways. It lands us in better places, doing greater things, helping in higher ways, and able to look back with fewer regrets.
He leads me beside quiet waters, He refreshes my souls. He guides me along the right paths for His name’s sake…
Psalm 23:3
