Reflection
“Speak the truth in love”, Paul’s words are direct and simple but in trying to act on them we often complicate things. It isn’t easy to speak difficult truth to another. We get caught in our own fear or cowardice. But, to be silent or obscure is not to show love to the person. We either let our simplistic understanding dilute the real truth and so speak an unclear or incomprehensible message, or blurt out the truth without compassion and generate resistance or anger. We do no service to the one who needs to know the truth. Paul completes his statement by adding” growing in every way more and more like Christ”. Jesus was not afraid to speak the truth. It certainly got him into trouble with those who would not accept it. For those who heard and experienced the love under the words, it was transformative.
Prayer
May I mature always speaking the truth in love.
Action
How do I react when a situation arises that requires me to confront another with
truth? Am I acting “more and more like Christ”?
Suggested Reading
Therefore, having put away falsehood, let each one of you speak the truth with his neighbor, for we are members one of another.
Ephesians 4:25
But we have renounced disgraceful, underhanded ways. We refuse to practice cunning or to tamper with God’s word, but by the open statement of the truth we would commend ourselves to everyone’s conscience in the sight of God.
2 Corinthians 4:2
We do not err because truth is difficult to see. It is visible at a glance. We err because this is more comfortable.
Alexander Solzhenitsyn
Men stumble over the truth from time to time, but most pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing happened.
Winston Churchill
The truth will set you free, but first it will make you miserable.
Jim Davis
From the cowardice that shrinks from new truth; from the laziness that is content with half-truths; from the arrogance that thinks it knows all truth – God of Truth deliver us!
Unknown
Honesty has a beautiful and refreshing simplicity about it. No ulterior motives. No hidden meanings. An absence of hypocrisy, duplicity, political games, and verbal superficiality. As honesty and real integrity characterize our lives, there will be no need to manipulate others.
Chuck Swindoll
Honesty consists of the unwillingness to lie to others; maturity, which is equally hard to attain, consists of the unwillingness to lie to oneself.
Sydney J. Harris
The cruelest lies are often told in silence.
Robert Louis Stevenson