Honesty
Dear Friends,
Billy Joel, on his “52
nd
Street” album sang the words “Honesty, is such a lonely word. Everyone is so untrue. Honesty, is hardly ever heard, and mostly what I need from you.” (Check it out here
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SuFScoO4tb0
) He had obviously been let down a time or two. I hope that your story isn’t quite so drastic or tragic. Still – I know that all of us struggle with honesty from time to time – whether it is how to be honest in a situation or how to deal with someone who has been dishonest with us.
In this day of social media and technology it seems that people are having fewer and fewer face to face conversations and more and more conversations via text, email, etc. I think that makes our communication more challenging and we have to be much more intentional to “say what we need to say” (John Mayer)!
Honesty has been drilled into me from an early age – from the church, from scouting, and from my family primarily. When you are honest you are trustworthy. You are a person of integrity – doing what you say you will do. Colossians 3:9 reads “Do not lie to one another, seeing that you have stripped off the old self.” Proverbs 10:9 states that “whoever walks in integrity walks securely, but whoever takes crooked paths will be found out.” These passages, and others like them, remind us that God’s desire is that we speak truth. This is the way of love and the way of being in right-relationship with others.
There does appear to be a lack of honesty in many places in our world. I hope that you will do all you can to practice it in your home and in all your relationships. May we teach it to our children and model it to them. It is indeed what we need from one another!
To God be the Glory!
Robert
