In group settings (group meetings, Bible studies, etc.) I am usually pretty quiet.
I observe, listen, and take it all in and am usually pretty reluctant to speak for one reason or thousands of introvertish anxiety ridden reasons another.
But when something new clicks my child-like excitement won’t allow me to sit still. If it registers as awe-inspiring on my internal scale I am compelled to speak up when it’s my turn. And then I quickly become an inquisitorial, annoying, probing, question-asking group member. I cross my fingers and hope that people won’t start tripping over each other on their way to the exit. I just enjoy the learning process. Maybe excessive curiosity is a character defect? 😉
Around 6 years ago I was about 4 years sober, and still considered myself a brand new Jesus-follower. I had (and still have) a tough time remembering what I read in the Bible and was still learning the ‘basics’. I had only recently discovered that the books in it were actually divided into different categories. Did everyone already know this?
One of my first Bible studies I attended was a study on the book of Daniel by Beth Moore. (Which was amazeballs, btw).
At that time truth was only beginning to mean something to me. It was definitely a new way of attempting to operate my new life.
During those years I actually spent most of my personal alone time uncovering and trying to sort my own personal truths from my past, facing my present truth-despite it being equally messy and ugly and painful, telling the truth in all of my everyday interactions and dealings with other humans, and sharing bits and pieces of my truth with others with a hope of helping someone.
Truth, truth, truth.
The epicenter of my life-transformation.
I was finally free.
At some point during a bible study discussion I heard someone quote John 14:6, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the father except by me.”
I felt like my heart and head could have burst open.
Something new clicked. I had a light-bulb moment in front of a room full of women who I hardly knew, and I didn’t care how ridiculous I looked or sounded.
“He is the truth?” I asked.
(Why didn’t’ anyone tell me?)
“HE is the TRUTH?”
“Omgosh.”
“HE is the truth!!”
It isn’t that ‘no one is home.’ Maybe all of my lights are on and I am home, but it takes me forever to answer the door because I am blow-drying my hair, dancing with the kids in the kitchen, chasing a toddler around the house or cowering in a corner peering through my cheap mini-blinds. I get distracted by everything.
“So that means that He is the truth that will set you free, when you say the truth will set you free?” I asked.
Shut the front door you guys. That’s what it means to have the truth set you free.
Because I knew who He is, (the absolute truth), I was strong enough and finally able to face my truth, (the factual) side of who I was and where I came from.
His truth allowed me to accept the gift of being able to redefine who I am, and what I was capable of doing from that point on. All because of my belief that He is the Truth.
The truth is powerful and unchanging in all contexts.
No matter how much you might try, you cannot change the truth.
It knows no bounds.
You either embrace it for who and what it is, or you ignore it and it damages you.
And often, we aren’t even aware of how much havoc it can cause in our hearts and our lives when we try to avoid truth.