johndhowell.com

Part 3 of 5

In the last couple of months I’ve been really trying to explore what truth is, how to recognize it, how to live it, how to speak it, and what to do when confronted by it. My purpose in this blog series is to simply share my thoughts on truth and how the encounters I have had with truth have changed me.  I hope you’ll enjoy and add your two cents to the discussion.

So my next big question about truth is that if I have an understanding of what truth is and if I’m able to begin recognizing truth – then how do I start to live truthfully? I think there’s two parts to this discussion. The first part has to deal with behavior and the second part has to deal with our speech. In this post I’ll simply be addressing the behavior part of living truthfully. Again, rather then make assumptions; I will simply share how I work to live truthfully in hopes that it makes sense in some way.

About two years ago, I started to make a change in the way I spend my personal time with God. In the past I was content in following the tried and true way of discovering God through scheduled Bible reading, inspirational devotional booklets, and of course the obligatory Sunday morning service time. The problem is that pattern of behavior simply led to a nice complacent, casual Christian life. I knew the Bible, but in all reality it bored me to simply play by the rules that I incorrectly assumed was necessary to be a part of the church.

The change was made simply because I recognized that while I was doing and saying all the Christian things – I really had no passion to live them out. That bothered me because I recognized that it was at its very root inconsistent and insincere behavior. So I changed everything I knew.  I went a bought a new Bible in a new version that I wasn’t used to and, with pen and highlighter in hand, began to read from Genesis to Revelations who this God was that I’ve heard about all my life and why He cared about me. I underlined and highlighted everything that I could that I thought applied directly to me.

As I did this, it became clear that there were glaring flaws in my character in comparison to what the Bible said that God wanted for me. As each of these flaws were revealed, I wrestled with the flaws and tried to understand what I needed to change in order to be the man that God desired me to be. Sometimes I understood immediately what needed to change, other times it took a few days/weeks/months for things to sink in.

As I walked through this process, my behavior and attitude changed so did my perceptions of people around me. I began to care more, to love more, to feel more about others and their well-being. When I really started to understand this was when I quite praying like I’ve always done and started to pray these three simple things.

1. Lord, heal me of the things that keep me from you.
2. Lord, teach me the things that bring me closer to you.
3. Lord, break my heart for the things that break your heart.

Once I started working through my Bible and praying these three simple truths, that’s when I really started to understand how to live truthfully. Living truthfully is more than just words and actions, it must be something that that reverberates through the very core of your being and explodes into every area of your life. Once it explodes – then and only then does living truthfully really begin to change things. If it never explodes- then all we’re doing is playing the Christian game just trying to get by. So – that’s my thoughts, how do you live truthfully?