ALIGNED TO TRUTH - from When Lost Men Come Home, not for men only

Aligned to Truth

The purpose of admitting our wrongs to God isn’t to enlighten Him by filling in the gory details of our life, as if anything were a surprise to Him. After all, He knows the whole story better than we do. When we admit the exact nature of our wrongs to God, we consciously and purposefully bring ourselves into agreement with God, Who is our Hope for Life. We accept the facts of our lives just as they are without argument, aligning ourselves with God and His Truth. This our right place before God, our right place in His universe. Where before, we had aligned our lives with self-rule, deception and secrets, we now align ourselves with God’s truth, and this leads to the recovery of our heart, soul, mind and our true strength as men and women of freedom. Ultimately, no one escapes the truth, but by admitting the truth about ourselves we move toward the wholeness we have been searching for all of our lives. We are simply taking the “bull by the horns” and taking responsibility for our lives and our future. Which is better — to die with secrets and then face our Creator in arrogant deception, or to seek Him now and humbly reveal ourselves, which is a way we ask for mercy? God gives real mercy to real people. If we want life, mercy and life, we have got to get real.

 The time is coming when everything will be revealed; all that is secret will be made public. Whatever you have said in the dark will be heard in the light, and what you have whispered behind closed doors will be shouted from the housetops for all to hear!

Luke 12:2, 3 NLT

 

My false and private self is the one who wants to exist outside the reach of God’s will and God’s love – outside of reality and outside of life. And such a self cannot help but be an illusion.

Thomas Merton in James Findley’s, Merton’s Place of Nowhere

 

            In the past, we used self-deceit and manipulation of facts much like Adam and Eve used fig leaves to avoid exposure. But to live, we step out from our hiding places and reveal our naked vulnerability. We make ourselves accountable for our lives, and trusting in God’s mercy and care, we become ready for God to reveal His loving and compassionate nature to us. Our movement toward God is in response to the call He’s been making to us all along. We respond to The One who continuously invites us to become fully alive in Him. Our identity of origin — made in the image of God — finds rebirth as we connect with God in this intimate way. In our honest admission to God and learning how to relate to Him as Father, we are becoming the most blessed of all people. 

 

Only now, however, is the evangelical church beginning to realize that without spiritual direction, without one-on-one or small group conversations where our lives are laid open in the presence of a person gifted to discern the workings of our inner life, the disease of deception will not be cured.  Without spiritual direction, millions of Christians will continue to walk the “OLD WAY,” thinking they’re on the path to knowing God well.

Larry Crabb, The Pressure’s Off pg 42

This is an excerpt from WHEN LOST MEN COME HOME, not for men only  ~ Copyright David Zailer, 2011

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