In our home, we taught our kids to live by two simple rules: love God and do not lie. These two pillars of living have been ‘easy’ to navigate through different ages with the children and simple to remember by them. Loving God has been an easy one ( so far) compared with ‘do not lie.’
You see, our world is run by lies. We are lied constantly by the press, lied in friendships, lied in the family and lied everywhere else. Lying is what happens to all of us when we walk away from the source of Truth. The problem with lies is that when lies become an everyday habit, they become our truth. They penetrate our character and mould our lives. For us to leave a life of falsehood we must know the truth. The Word of God is truth and it will help us to learn, live and love the truth.
God, like a loving Father, transforms us by the truth. Like a gentle river, He penetrates our hearts by exposing lies and making the truth amiable to us.
We, like the psalmist who basks in the truth, learn to love the truth and live the truth so that we can walk in the truth.
We start by being an open book before God, for if we are truthful with God we can be truthful with all, yes even ourselves. It’s a daily choice, daily delighting and longing for the truth.
Even when we stray away from the truth, God the Father, the Good Shepherd promises to look out and seek for us and bring us back to Him.
( See Colossians 3:9-10, Proverbs 13:5, Ephesians4:26, 1 John 5:20)