I have lined up three topics on which I am going to write reflections in coming days. One topic is telling untruths and half-truths about others. This is a serious problem on social media, but it is not confined to social media. A second topic is “speaking the truth in love.” There are times when someone we know may be doing something that is hurting them or hurting others and we would not be showing love for them if we kept silent. At the same time, we need to point what they are doing to their attention in a loving way, a way that is consistent with loving others. A third topic is hypocrisy—claiming to have standards or beliefs to which our own behavior does not conform. We all are guilty of hypocrisy to some degree. We do not fully live up to the standards that we claim are ours nor do we fully live out the beliefs which we also claim are ours. To make matters worse, we accept our lack of consistency rather than seeking to correct it.
All three topics are difficult ones to tackle. Readers may take exception to what I write. I may strike a nerve. Yet they are topics from which we should shy away out of fear of displeasing someone.
Telling untruths or half-truths has consequence for us. It erodes trust and damage respect. It gives opportunity to the enemy—the spiritual forces working in the world, opposed to God, and intent on our undoing. It provides critics of our faith with ammunition to use against us. It also discourages those who do not yet know and love Jesus from giving us a hearing. “Why should I believe what they are telling me about Jesus?” they think, “They are always telling lies and spreading falsehoods about other matters!”
When we speak the truth in love, we speak out of love for whoever we are speaking to, and we speak lovingly with kindness, gentleness, and compassion. The difficult part is that to whomever we are speaking, we may not come across as kind, gentle, or compassionate. We are pointing something to their attention they may not want or welcome drawn to their attention. They may perceive it as undue criticism and us as judgmental.
Yet not saying anything, keeping silent, would not be an act of love toward them. When we see a child running toward the edge of a cliff, we do not leave him to throw himself over the cliff’s edge out of a misplaced notion of love, saying to ourselves, “He wants to jump off the cliff. I should let him jump. It is the loving thing to do.” We do all we can to prevent him from harming himself. Letting someone harm themselves is not love. It is indifference.
When our behavior does not conform to the standards and beliefs we claim to be ours, we undermine those standards and beliefs. We also destroy our own credibility. Those who are not yet disciples of Jesus say to themselves, “Why should I believe that loving others is as important as they say? They don’t treat it as important. If it was that important, they would treat it as important.” They recognize in how we behave what we truly value.
One Psych2Go video I watched pointed to its viewer’s attention that we can tell how kind someone is from the way they treat the wait staff at a restaurant. If they are unkind to the waitress or waiter, they are not a kind person. I breathed a sigh of relief. I work at being courtesy, friendly, and generous to wait staff because it is the loving thing to do. As a child I was taught to show respect and kindness to others whatever their station in life. I also have had friends who waited tables in restaurants or worked as baristas. They must deal with all kinds of customers. Because of the kind of work they do, some customers feel free to treat them badly, showing them no respect or kindness.
All three topics relate to how we live our lives as disciples of Jesus. They address the question, “Are we doing the best we can with God’s help to follow Jesus?’
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