Lent Day 8: Just pretending, or Liar Liar

This is a repost of an earlier blog, even as I'm examining my own life during Lent for integrity and truth-telling. Hope you enjoy it. RK

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Do you ever feel like your whole life is one big hideout? Like you're just pretending to be a real person? "Could you live unveiled? Or do you feel forced to pretend?" That's what I've been asking myself.

I read this in the morning:

Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.
And we all, who with unveiled faces reflect the Lord’s glory,
are being transformed into his image with ever-increasing glory, 

which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit. 2 Corinthians 3:17-18 NIV

That got me thinking about what it would be like to live "unveiled." 

I found a few interesting studies about living untruthfully:

• All of us lie. 
• We lie often.
• Kids learn to lie from watching their parents.
• We invent many excuses for telling lies.
• Lying becomes easier with practice.
• Books on lying have become best-sellers: the subject is compelling and universally practised.

Are you comfortable telling the truth? With having others know everything about you?

My college roommate is one in a million. She decided a few years ago to be honest about everything. Spending time with her is refreshing.

Though she's very nice about it, she's willing to be known as herself, rather than hiding behind PC assumptions. She's not mean, but if she isn't interested in seeing something, she'll let you know. If she doesn't agree, she says so. If she wants to do one thing and not the other, eat a particular food and not another, go here but not there ... just ask her. She'll tell you.

"What do other people think about you being so honest?" I asked her.

"Some people like it and some don't," she admitted. "But I live to please God, who is Truth. This is who I am. Who God made me. And I am willing not to be liked when I tell the truth."

What liberty! How would my unveiled face look to my family? To my neighbor? My coworker? My friends at church? The teammates where I volunteer?

In what ways have you told the truth or concealed it? What were the consequences?

Read more: 

*The Lord is coming to judge the earth. He will judge the world with righteousness, and the peoples with equity. Psalm 98:9 NLT

*My heart, O God, is steadfast; I will sing and make music with all my soul. Awake, harp and lyre! I will awaken the dawn.

I will praise you, Lord, among the nations; I will sing of you among the peoples. For great is your love, higher than the heavens; your faithfulness reaches to the skies. Be exalted, O God, above the heavens; let your glory be over all the earth. Psalm 108:1-5 NIV

*I love the LORD, because he has heard my voice and my pleas for mercy. Because he inclined his ear to me, therefore I will call on him as long as I live. Psalm 116:1-2 NIV

*Jesus said, "My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to complete his work." John 4:34 NLT

*See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are. The reason why the world does not know us is that it did not know him. Beloved, we are God's children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is. And everyone who thus hopes in him purifies himself as he is pure. 1 John 3:1-3 ESV

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An anonymous poem found in her mom's old Bible, shared by my friend Sylvia Stewart: 

I am not strong till Thou has clasped my hand,
I am not fit till by Thy side I stand,
I am not brave till Thou hast come to me;
Till Thou has bound me fast, I am not free.

Moravian Prayer: Lord, we wait for you. We know you are coming for us. We know that all things come from you. We are thankful for your presence surrounding us. Grant us wisdom to see your work in us today and every day. Amen.