"Let's have the truth, please! REALLY?"

No moral person would argue that telling the truth is the honorable thing to do. The question, however, is how easy is it to always know what "telling the truth" really means. One of the 10 commandments declares we should bear no false witness. This would mean that telling the truth is refraining from misleading or misinforming someone when we know the difference. This is quite clear with objective facts. Example, one's age is an objective fact and it would be "bearing false witness" if we told someone our age is 21 when it is really 20. BUT, there are many instances when we are not dealing with OBJECTIVE facts.

For example, suppose we believe that we need some other person, or even love some other person. To what degree is this subjective, or subject to our sense-making mechanisms. Because of the way we perceive ourselves and events around us, we may believe we need or love someone. BUT, what makes that true??

There are other challenges regarding being truthful. We have covered the moral imperative to never intentionally mislead or misinform another when we are confronted by another. BUT, what about when we know things that another doesn't and don't tell them. There are two conditions of this. One is the other person desires to know this from us and withholding the truth (as we understand it) would be contrary to the moral imperative to be truthful. BUT, what about when another person really doesn't seek from us or maybe even does not want to know what is true. Do we have a moral imperative to tell them anyway? Is it being untruthful when we withhold something we know to be true from another to protect them from harm that the truth may cause them? Do we tell our aunt who is overweight that she is fat without her asking us our perspective? Withholding what we know to be true when others really don't seek it from us seems to be a dilemma, especially when what we know to be true is subjective, or determined by the limitations on our own sense-making.


So, telling the truth may not be so simple. What are our options?

For those who have trusted Jesus to provide them life, we have a really good option. Jesus said He is the truth. OK, then one thing we can do is depend on Him to provide "light" as the basis for our sense-making (kingdom mind). Another thing we can do is to trust He will redeem all the mistakes we make in failing as truth tellers - AND for one, I make many, many mistakes in this area.

Certainly something to ponder .......