If You Want to Know the Truth

It’s likely that we all want to know the truth. The earlier we know the truth, the happier we would usually be. It isn’t that we always expect to like the truth, but most of us realize that we will find out the truth eventually, and it’s least painful to learn it now, rather than later.

As I have thought about this, I’ve concluded that some people just won’t tell us the truth because they are not, themselves, truthful. They won’t tell anyone the truth—not even themselves or God. In other cases, however, we actually influence how truthful people are with us by how we respond to truth.

If I’m sitting with three people, and one of them says, "I don’t agree with what you’re saying," and I get angry, how likely are the other two (if they are peace-lovers, that is) to then be honest if they disagree with me? If the truth always offends me, hurts my feelings, or in some other way inspires me to act badly, I’m not going to be encouraging truth-telling.

Few of us are born with naturally good responses to truth, though, and very few of us have been raised with those good responses set before us as an example. For many of us, the only good example we have of how to respond to truth comes from stories in the Bible that show how God responds to truth and to deceit.

In one fairly popular passage, God says, "Come, let us reason together." (Doesn’t sound like He was intending to be offended by what we said, does it?) In the law, when instructions were given for waging war, those who were afraid were told to stay home. They were not instructed to pretend that they were brave. Similar examples abound, from cover to cover. In fact, I cannot think of a single instance in which the Lord in any way rejected anyone because they told the truth.

Quite the contrary, in fact! God rejected Saul from being king over Israel primarily because of his dishonesty. Deadly punishment fell on a couple in the early church because they lied about the price of property they had sold. Had they been honest and said they were giving the apostles half of the proceeds of the land, all (apparently) would have been well, but they lied, and said they were giving the entire proceeds.

Our example, then, is of someone who is so sure of who He is that He is in no way bothered by who we are. Loving what He loves and wanting what He wants benefits us because He is God and what He wants will happen, but there is no indication that He gets upset because we don’t.

I’ll admit I’m not too good at this yet. I have a lot of room to grow.

But first I have to love God.

Then I have to learn that He loves truth.

And then, eventually, I’ll learn to love it, too.

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