(Be sure to see the previous posts to
get the context of this article.)
The
third principle is Act on the Truth. This
is perhaps the hardest of the three. It's not enough to know the
truth and to accept it, you must act upon it. You must make your
decisions, adjust your attitude, act out the part as though it is
true even if your feelings are screaming at you. Now this is not the
same thing as wishful thinking or positive thinking. We are not
creating truth by wishing or hoping long enough or hard enough. We're
talking about truths we know. Truth is something that is out there
whether we believe it or not. Obviously we don't know all truth, but
we do know some. The force of gravity is a natural truth. No matter
how much you might wish it weren't true, it's still in effect. If you
jump from a 10 story roof, the forces of nature will apply to you no
matter who you are, no matter whether you believe in God or not. You
might wish you could jump and soar like a bird among the buildings,
but all of the wishing in the world does not make it so. Now there
are other truths that also exist that will allow you to invent some
sort of wings or parachute, but in all of these cases you are
required to act according to natural truths or face the consequences.
That's true in the spiritual life as well. God says that we should
not be fooled. We will reap what we sow. We may not like it. We may
wish it were different, but there is coming a day when the harvest
will show what we've been planting. Another truth that is troubling
is that we live once, we die once and after that comes the judgment.
(Hebrews 9:27)
Sometimes you need
to act out the truth almost as though you are acting a part. You may
feel hypocritical doing this because inside your feelings aren't
meshing with the behavior. For example a truth of Scripture is that
we are to be kind to others no matter what they may have done to us.
Acting kindly toward someone who has hurt you deeply may make you
feel like a hypocrite. Inside you may not be feeling all of that
kindly, but you are acting out kindness in spite of those feelings.
If we live and act according to the truth, our feelings will catch up
with us eventually. Feelings are real, but they can be deceptive. So
live out the truth no matter what the feelings say.
An analogy is like
the first time we learned to float during our swimming lessons. They
told you that the water would hold you up if you just rested on it.
They may not have told you that the water would hold you up after
about 7/8 of your body was submerged, but it's still the truth. You
can believe what they told you and you can even accept it. But when
they have you lie back on their arms, it starts to be a different
story. Then they tell you to relax and they begin to lower their arms
to allow the water to take over. You continue to sink as their arms
descend. If you're like me, you get to the point where you start
thrashing with your legs and feet trying to find out where the bottom
of the pool is. However, if you get to the point of actually resting
on the truth that the water will hold you up, it's an exhilarating
experience.
...to be continued...
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