Accepting the Truth

8.11.2011

Jeremiah 5:1 “Go up and down the streets of Jerusalem, look around and consider, search through her squares. If you can find but one person who deals honestly and seeks the truth, I will forgive this city.”

How many people do you know who hit the honesty mark every time? How many are what you could call truth-seekers. It seems God was looking for only one. It seems there wasn’t one to be found.

There are few who could be called honest. There might be the honest that play by the rules and treat others the way they want to be treated. But the combination of the two – honest and truth-seeking – there’s just not too many of them around. Those who are are in high demand.

The world pathetically and pitifully cries out for honesty and the truth. Everyone wants to be treated fairly; sadly, not everybody wants to hear the truth – or deal with it. God’s truth here in this verse certainly made some of the people in Jerusalem in Jeremiah’s day uncomfortable. Sadly the rest of the story reveals there was an unhappy ending…

Sometimes the truth makes me uncomfortable; I don’t care much for what we term “constructive” criticism (code: plain old criticism). Like many, I tend to have a fairly high opinion of myself and go out of my way at times to protect it. But the truth exists for a reason because without the truth, I’ll ignore some of the realities of life that I really need to deal with. As painful as it may be, I need to heed the truth and seek it.

Truth seeking admits that there is a God, I am not Him, and I need Him way worse/more than I think I do. Truth seeking helps remove the blinders of high opinion, and helps prevent the sowing of the empty tears of regret that cannot, by ignoring them, be baked into the bread of forgiveness and redemption.

And truth-seeking always brings me face to face with God who knows all of my faults and yet loves me anyway. That’s what it’s all about – not the hokey-pokey. Truth-seeking moves me into the realm of a Kingdom (capital ‘K’) where, faults and all, I find acceptance and love; and a God who is hard at work in my soul. Whether the world wants to hear it or not, I do; and I know I’m better because I man-up and accept the truth in whatever fashion it happens to present itself.