Have I now become your enemy by telling you the truth?
– Galatians 4:16
The truth can be painful. When we are told the truth about ourselves and our ways – truth we are unwilling to admit – our reaction can be annoyance, anger, resentment even. We love to be flattered; and we shrink with pain when anything or anyone hints at the necessity to repent and change.
Jesus is the Truth. Are we humble enough to listen to and accept His loving advice and His pleas for us to change, as He tells us and warns us about ourselves and what we do? Are we willing to give up what we have now, in exchange for Jesus’ promise?
If not, then we cannot call ourselves ‘faithful’, and we must admit that the only ‘truth’ we are ready to embrace is the one which pleases us now. Instant satisfaction – perhaps this is why our churches are emptying!
My Lord and my God, thank You for Your Truth.
God, give me Grace to accept with serenity the things that cannot be changed,
Courage to change the things which should be changed,
and the Wisdom to distinguish the one from the other.
Living one day at a time;
enjoying one moment at a time;
accepting hardship as a pathway to peace;
taking, as Jesus did, this sinful world as it is, not as I would have it;
trusting that You will make all things right, if I surrender to Your will,
so that I may be reasonably happy in this life
and supremely happy with You forever in the next.
[Today’s prayer is the “Serenity Prayer” by theologian R. Niebuhr.]