Truth, Unfiltered

  "Everyone loves the honest person until the honest person strikes a chord with a truth they weren't ready to receive."

Isn't that the truth? Have you ever tried to extend help to a complaining person and it turned out they really didn't want help at all, but they just wanted to keep complaining? Your "help" became an intrusion into their narrative of "poor poor pitiful me", and how dare you try to give them any kind of solution! 

It can be very frustrating to listen to a person continually complain about the same thing, over and over, especially when they do nothing proactive to change. And that same person will flat out ignore any knowledge, wisdom, or resources given to help them along the way. 

Sometimes I sit and marvel at the dummies who had Jesus right there next to them, sitting in his robe and sandals, and they STILL didn't listen or heed his advice. How blind do you have to be? 

The way of a fool is right in his own eyes, But a wise man is he who listens to counsel. 

Proverbs 12:15 

We can tell someone the same thing over and over, but eventually we need to realize that communicating isn't the problem. Their comprehension of not only the problem, but the solution, is the problem. We can't solve other people's problems. As frustrating as it can be to have the same complaint dumped at our feet each time, we have to learn not to pick it up, make it ours, and just keep blowing smoke at it with futility. Some people like talking about their problems more than they really desire to fix them. And I'm quite convinced that people really like talking about the world's problems without offering any intelligent solutions at all. 

I have a few solid people in my life who tell me the raw and honest, unfiltered truth. I need them. I need the truth all the time. I don't want it whitewashed and candy-coated. I need to know when I'm full of malarkey, when I'm fooling myself, when I'm off-base, or off my rocker. I need to know and I want to know the truth, and if you tiptoe around me or you walk on eggshells around it with me, I will know two things about you: 1. You don't really know me, and  2. You probably don't love me. Love equals honesty with me. And if I am able to be honest in return, we've got a deal made in heaven for eternity. 

If I tell you the truth and I'm being open and honest with you, it means I feel I know you and I care about you and love you and vice versa.  If I'm withholding, it means either you haven't allowed me to get to know you, we don't know each other well yet, or there isn't enough love or care between us at that point. Otherwise, the relationship will be sweet and surface, polite, complete with a muffin and coffee.  My least favorite kind. 

I have learned over the last two years that when I have spoken my truth or my heart, it has repelled the people who said they cared about me and would never step out of my life. However, they had felt or said those things because I kept myself at a distance from the topics I knew would cause hurt feelings among THEM. Again, communication can help or hurt, but comprehension is everything, and I knew I couldn't count on either of those things, and I was right.  People will only hear what serves them sometimes, and that certainly does not make for a very productive conversation, does it? An honest conversation really requires the one element that probably hurt me more than any of those interactions: love. A lack of love exposed will crack any relationship wide open and reveal just how shallow it was the whole time.  As the saying goes, the truth hurts. 

The truth people need to be ready to receive is that it's not what is going on in the world, or what people say to us (whether well-meaning, true or not), or even what we are saying quietly to ourselves. We are all under a much higher authority and a much more open mind than any of us can ever possess, and that is God. God works with us and through us, but if we aren't turning to Him every day for the insight and the direction we need for ourselves, then we can offer little direction for anyone else. 

When I even spend my daily 10 minutes updating myself on the US headline news on my Canadian (unbiased) news app, I find myself twisting up inside. When I spend 30 minutes with God and reading what the Bible says, and how I am to be conducting myself and toward others, I feel at peace. It's no wonder that there are millions of angry, unproductive, miserable, prideful, fatigued, and disgruntled people around the world. I am willing to bet there are more people spending their day watching garbage news than filling their minds with what God says about them. Is that a fair assumption based on what you've experienced with people lately? My goodness I'm tired of negative people and negative words and negative actions everywhere! 

One of my truth-telling dear friends, Norm, instructed me to step into the grass in my bare feet and spend some time asking God for my healing. I didn't just brush off his suggestion. I actually flipped off my shoes, as did my husband, and we spent the day in our bare feet up north, basking in the sun, and spending time in the Spirit of God and nature. When is the last time you took a dear friend's suggestion to heart? Do you know how many times I have suggested something to a friend and it gets brushed off? I would guess probably every time. But I value what Norm says because of two things in me: I want to see a change in me, and I believe in him and the results that his life reflects. I want to be more like Jesus, and Norm does too. Does that involve telling me things I don't like to hear sometimes? Yes, but if I'm wise, I'll listen. If I'm a fool, I won't. It's that simple. 

Whoever heeds instruction is on the path to life, but he who rejects reproof, leads others astray. 

Proverbs 10:17

You have to want to change, and part of change is recognizing the truth of the problem.  If you want to know what God thinks about you and what you're doing, you have to be willing to listen, put the time in, and make the changes. If you don't, then don't complain that your life isn't the life you want. God will use other people to tell you the truth sometimes, and maybe you'll strike out at them or not want them around anymore, but eventually if you are ready to listen, you will welcome the honesty and you will take the instruction. In other words, you'll take that humble pill we all need to take sometimes and get busy getting yourself better. 

Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ. 

Ephesians 4:15 ESV