In a deceit driven world where covers
and curtains are the norm, human beings grapple with the idea of honesty and
transparency. We see it everywhere. It's on the news all day long and surrounds
our world like a blanket covering up people's bad choices.
Whether its political or in the
entertainment world or in the highest perches of business or the most intimate
world of personal relationships, people don't want other people to know either what
they're doing or what they have done. Whether it's about getting ahead or
hiding one's sins honesty has been sacrificed for personal gain.
I have no fingers on my hands with
which to point at anyone. As disgusting as it is to watch and as indignant and
self-righteous as I can get over the level of deceit that I see and read about
that possesses our political and social world, it all boils down to human
beings trapped in a broken world ruled by the father of lies himself.
I'm fully aware of my own entrapment
driven by guilt and shame. The earlier it begins in a child's development the
more difficult it becomes in that person's potential journey to freedom. Fear
and shame drive a hard road into hiding. They are evil taskmasters designed to trap
the soul and incarcerate the mind. They cripple the mind with the idea that if
one is found out they will be cast aside and rejected. It is a common theme
that threads its way throughout humanity. And what could be worse? Who doesn't
seek approval? Who doesn't want to be accepted, and most of all loved?
When I was 7 years old over the course
of close to a year I was sexually violated by 16-year-old female babysitter. I
was a little boy and suddenly I was exposed to things no child should know. Every time it happened she would tell me not to tell; and so the hiding, fear and shame began. To make matters worse, not long after it all had happened she moved
away and left me feeling confused, empty and afraid. Love and sex were now
blurred. I had no idea of the ramifications and long term effects that had been
inflicted upon me. My innocence had been stolen and my 7-year-old conscience
knew something was wrong but I was afraid to tell.
I became keenly aware of guilt and shame.
They became my close companions driving me deeper and deeper into a place of
hiding, into a world of secrets. Everything inside me emotionally began to shut
down and a different world emerged. I began to act out. Like a clogged pore, my
surface began to erupt. I had no idea that I had become a slave. What it did to
me by opening that door was open my eyes to things innocense should never see.
That is the plan of darkness: trap the mind before it can reason right and
wrong and you ensnare the adult. (Here is where the church has missed it. It
doesn’t address a world it cannot see or understand. It wants to save but it
doesn’t understand know how to set you free from chains that have bound so many
from their youth.)
Where were my parents you ask? I didn't
tell them until I was 48 years old. They sat dumbfounded in silence as I
recalled the details of what had happened to me. They were shocked that I even remembered
her name and the house where she lived.
I began to live a life of wrong choices
that inevitably required me to cover my guilt. I needed to lie because that's
what you do, right? Without going deep into all the sordid details, I didn't
just sin a little… I sinned a lot. It was all about me. Relationships became a
difficult thing to maintain because love and sex were one. It took most of my
life to realize they are not. Acceptance for me was based in my performance and
my performance always found a way to crash and burn eventually. It sabotaged me
virtually every time. My choices were all wrong. I chose the wrong people for
all the wrong reasons. The very thing I wanted more than anything eluded me
because I was unable to receive love, which stifled my ability to give it. I
was trapped in a world of self-deceit hiding my secrets, which only made things
worse.
I couldn't face the man in the mirror
for very long.
Even when I became a Christian and
began to learn about the love of God for me, it was cerebral but my soul
couldn't fully embrace it because I was always ashamed, even though I knew God knew everything. My rescue began there. God knew it would take time. He filled
my mind with Him. He came close to me and let me hear Him. I wanted Him my
whole life. He talked to me when I was 5 and told me what I would do when I was
older. He also knew what would happen to me. His patience was unending, His
love always pursuing and His arms, no matter how far I got or how hard I fell,
were always open.
Truth sets us free. There is no such
thing as my truth or your truth, this person's truth and that person's truth. There
is only one truth and it comes from God. The most difficult thing about honesty
is that God requires it from us. He wants us to face the truth with Him. He knows
the power it has to deliver us. That can only be achieved by letting Him
penetrate our darkness with the light of His truth; which can only be realized
through transparency and humility and our willingness to forsake our shame and
guilt, to abandon our fear for the unlimited possibilities of life, liberty and
freedom!
In the Bible King David, a man well
acquainted with lying and hiding his guilt and shame said it like this in Palm
51, [interpretation by me] "You (God) delight in truth (full honesty and
transparency) in my soul. It's there You teach me wisdom in my secret heart.
Rid me of this blight with the blood of Your sacrifice and I shall be clean;
wash me and I will be whiter than snow. Let my freedom cause me to hear
and know joy and gladness once again and let my bones that needed Your breaking
rejoice. Hide Your face from my sins and by Your love erase the imprint of all
my immoral acts and deeds. Create in me a pure and honest heart, O God, and
renew a spirit of right within me."
Paul said in Galatians, "…it was
for FREEDOM Messiah has set us free." I've been around the world and talked
to many people and I can tell you that the consensus is unanimous; America has
something no other place in the whole world has. Those who come to her know it
well. She gives freedom to all. But it's not until they taste freedom that they
fully understand what it means to be free. Freedom for us only comes when we
taste and see that what God offers us is good. It’s then we begin to
understand. As long as we hide, as long as we are driven by whatever motivates
us to preserve ourselves we will never understand the power of God's mercy, His
acceptance and the sacrifice He made to deliver us from our chains and restore
us to Himself by His never-failing always patient love. L’chaim! To LIFE!
This is nothing new, as a matter of
fact it's as old as time. It's as old as the story of the Garden of Eden where
God came to Adam who was hiding because of the guilt and shame of his
disobedience and asks him, "Why are you hiding?" Adam told God it was
because he was naked and ashamed. God's response to Adam was "Who told you
were naked?"
The father of lies has never changed. The story is repeated over and over and the results are always the same. Billy
Joel said “Honesty is such a lonely word” but the truth is... honesty brings the
greatest Friend you could ever have who will never ever leave you alone.
© 2018 Steven Bliss
