How Shall We Then Live - Part Four

(Graduation address continued)


Finally, if we want to know how to live, we have to learn to be people of honesty and forgiveness. Jesus said, "The truth will set you free."


I walked into my doctor's office about 8 years ago complaining of a chronic intestinal issue. It was a problem that went all the way back to my college days. I expected my doctor to give me a pep talk about my diet and to give me something to take for it. Instead, she looked at me right in the eye and said, "Until you deal with whatever is upsetting you, you are going to keep coming back here for the same problems." What? I thought she had lost her mind until I realized there was truth to what she was telling me. She wanted me to face my problems head on, tell myself the truth about them, give them to God, and then let go of them. On that day, I started down on what I call the "path of truth", and I've never looked back.



We live in a world of liars. Politicians lie, parents lie to their children, children lie to their parents, we live to ourselves. We lie, because we cannot face the truth about ourselves.



The truth is, we are made in the image of God, born with incredible gifts and abilities, but sin has destroyed that beauty. Like a masterpiece painted on a rotting canvas that has been knifed and then spray-painted with graffi, we cannot look at the beauty that is us without looking at the rot and damage that has been done. The horror that something so beautiful could be damaged so badly is unbearable to us, so we look the other way, or we lie about it.



This is why we must have that relationship with God that I talked about when I started. Christ died and rose again to deal with our sin. When we yield ourselves to God and allow Him to deal with our fallen nature, we begin to see for the first time who He meant for us to be. He begins restoration (our sanctification) on the masterpiece that is us. He restores the rotten canvas, cleans up the graffiti, repairs the holes, and we start becoming what He meant for us to be all along.



That means we ask God for grace to live a life of honesty and forgiveness: honesty with God by confessing our sins to Him daily and accepting His forgivenss; honesty with others by not hiding who we really are behind masks, vowing to tell the truth no matter how much it hurts, and forgiving others when they sin against us; and honesty, by refusing to lie to ourselves about what and who we really are and forgiving ourselves when we fail.



How shall we then live? We must vow to live with and for God first, and then for others.



What kind of people should we be? We must be men and women of truth and forgiveness.


I will close with this quotation from Oliver DeMille and Sharon Brooks in their book Thomas Jefferson Education for Teens.



It is said that when God wants to change the world, he sends a baby--perfectly timed to grow, learn, prepare, and then take action at the right moment...when God sees a need coming in the world, he sends a baby.



But there are times when one baby won't suffice, when the challenges the world faces are just too much; and so instead of a great reformer or a few key people, what is needed is a whole generation of leaders.



When the world is broken, a generation is born. We live in such a world. And you are such a generation.



Gandhi is ofen credited with saying that you should be the change you wish to see in the world. We wonder if he meant literally that you should change the world's problems in yourself? Maybe.



But we think he also meant that you should be who you were truly born to be-the best, true, Real You!



Is there anything in the world as powerful as a person who is truly himself? Or herself? Especially when the person is in love with good?



And I will add, especially when that person is in love with God and others.


Comments

Anonymous said…
Well worth the wait. God Bless.

I truly wish I had learned this lesson earlier than I did.
Ruby said…
That is a very moving message for those young folk, and for us to read. How then ought we to live? It is a simple but worthy examination for each christian to comtemplate and to seek to live out.
Thanks.
It took me a couple of visitis to read right through.
Much wisdom. Thanks for blogging this.

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