WATCHWORD:
“1 Don’t let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God, and trust also in me. 2 There is more than enough room in my Father’s home. If this were not so, would I have told you that I am going to prepare a place for you? 3 When everything is ready, I will come and get you, so that you will always be with me where I am. 4 And you know the way to where I am going.” 5 “No, we don’t know, Lord,” Thomas said. “We have no idea where you are going, so how can we know the way?” 6 Jesus told him, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one can come to the Father except through me.” John 14:1-5
Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understandings. Proverbs 3:5
Meditation:
Truth? Real Truth?
That quote from Jesus to trust in God is fixed in our minds. We have discussed it in many different forums and tried to slant it one way or another, applying secular morality or inclusion to what Jesus said. But, Jesus did not say he would show the truth or teach the truth or model the truth. He said He I Am the truth. He is the source of truth. You and I can discover truth, but we cannot create it. We cannot mold it to our fancy.
Puddin’ Head Wilson tells us that “Few things are harder to put up with than the annoyance of a good example. Truth is a good example.
What is truth? Truth, real truth, is a hard taskmaster. You know with truth there is no wiggle room, no way to hedge the bet. No way to hide or duck it. As Steve Brown has said, “Truth is true because it’s…well, true.”
If you speak the truth, the real truth, I wonder how people would react? It’s a sure way to lose friends and irritate people, according to one skeptic. In truth, there is no “flexibility”. It is, or it isn’t.
More from Puddin’ Head Wilson: “When in doubt, tell the truth. Noise proves nothing. Often a hen who has merely laid an egg cackles as if she had laid an asteroid. Man is the only animal that blushes. Or needs to.”
In this political world of ours, what is the truth? Is truth whatever you hear from whatever source you choose to trust? Is it true truth? How would you know? We’ve already admitted that you can’t manufacture truth. However, put a false story out in the media and someone is going call it truth, and someone else is going to believe it. And so it goes — manufactured truth.
This is a source of fear for many of us. Fear for our families, especially the next generation, and what they might face in the years ahead. What do we lean on? What do we rely on? Where is the bulwark of truth? Then, we hear the Master tell us, again, that He is the truth, and we should be reassured.
Jesus said, “Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.” Phil 4:6. How come we still worry, we still are anxious? Do we not trust what Jesus says enough to act on it?
Then, later in that same passage, we read: “I can do all thing through Christ who gives me strength.” Do you believe that? Can you live your life trusting that? Can you act on that whenever you have reached the end of your rope? Is Jesus speaking the truth? Wait, he doesn’t speak the truth, He IS the truth! Got it?
There is your answer. Do you Trust in the Lord with all your heart. Yes? Then present your requests to God. Have you done that? Are you still hanging on to your frets, your worries? Where is your trust in the Lord?
In the movie A Few Good Men, there is an iconic court martial scene where the Tom Cruise character is questioning the Jack Nicholson character who responds by saying “You can’t handle the truth!”
Can we handle our own truth? Can we be real and open to our own weaknesses? Read that passage again — “Don’t let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God, and trust also in me – That’s where it begins, folks, trusting in Jesus. Looking for the real truth? There it is. True today, true tomorrow, and true into all the future tomorrows. So be it.
Good Morning, Prayer:
We greet the Lord as we rise so that we may offer our first thought, our fresh words to the One who can carry us through our busy day. Before our feet hit the floor or our minds are filled with the busy events of the day, we take a moment to talk to our gracious God.
Good morning, Lord!
I offer to you my day,
All of my joys and my sufferings, my cares and my concerns,
My accomplishments and my failures.
All that I have, all that I do, is yours.
Keep me in your care. Guard me in my actions.
Teach me to love, and help me to turn to you throughout the day.
The world is filled with temptations. As I move through my day,
keep me close.
May those I encounter feel your loving presence.
Lord, be the work of my hands and my heart.
Amen.
Prayer of St. Clare of Assisi
