HONESTY

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