“The truth hurts.” I heard the adage from parents, grandparents, preachers, teachers and friends, but it didn’t relieve the pain I felt when hearing truth.
Since the truth hurts and we don’t usually like pain, we design ways or phrases to camouflage it. Short is vertically challenged. Pedophiles are sexually challenged. Merry Christmas becomes Happy Holidays. Maids are house helpers, prostitutes are sex care providers, bald people are comb free, old people are gerontologically advanced, and ugly people are cosmetically different.
We call such terms “politically correct,” and some are needed to replace cruel phrases of the past. Others, however, are designed to make me feel better about myself when I shouldn’t and can stymie my initiative disguising truth I need to hear.
Habakkuk asked some questions of God: how long evil would prevail and why his people would be punished. Then he climbed into his watchtower to wait on God’s answer. The LORD answered me: Write down this vision; clearly inscribe it on tablets so one may easily read it (Habakkuk 2:2 HCSB).
God didn’t want his truth camouflaged and he still doesn’t. Efforts to conceal truth or speak it in inoffensive ways only harms those who need to hear it most.
If I’m lazy, I don’t need to think I’m motivationally dispossessed, I need to hear “Get a job.” If I’m a law breaker, I’m not ethically challenged, I’m a crook. If I get drunk every day, I’m not spacially perplexed, I’m an alcoholic and need help.
If my actions are offending God, I need to hear unvarnished not camouflaged truth. Sin is more than a mistake, genetic fault or error-though it’s all that and more. It’s an offense against a holy God, and unless I hear the truth I may think mine are not very offensive and choose to keep living the same way when what I need is to change directions.
God’s truth may offend but it does because he loves and wants to remove what disconnects us from him. Let God’s truth move you to action.
Prayer: God, shine Your truth into our lives whether it hurts or not. www.lovelinesfromgod.com
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