"Lies are a little fortress; inside them you can feel safe and powerful. Through your little fortress of lies you try to run your life and manipulate others. But the fortress needs walls, so you build some. These are the justifications for your lies. You know, like you are doing this to protect someone you love, to keep them from feeling pain. Whatever works, just so you feel okay about the lies. ....The truth is, the real reason is not because you were trying to save her pain. The real reason is that you were afraid of having to deal with the emotions you might encounter, both from her and in yourself. Emotions scare you. You lied to protect yourself, not her!...And, furthermore, such a lie is unloving. In the name of caring about her, your lie became an inhibitor in your relationship."
--The Shack, William P. Young
Oh, I would never do that! Would I? I, who believe the truth is so important? And yet... I think back to conversations avoided, truths left unsaid, simply because I didn't want to anger someone. Walking on eggshells... Shading the truth. Saying things a certain way so someone would not feel hurt, and get angry, and ... not because I wanted to save him from pain, but because ... because I wanted to save myself from having to deal with his hurt or fear and attendant anger. I wanted to save myself from the feeling of inadequacy that arose from such conversations.
What lies have I told myself that I believe? What am I afraid of, and avoiding, by telling those lies?
Later, reading the book "Finder", by Emma Bull, I found the following: "It's easier to be angry on someone else's behalf, than on my own. And yet, I find I have a well of anger in me, that I have been filling for years from my own hurts. If I spill it out in defense of another, I can deny that it's mine."
Again, angry? Me? Never! But still... there have been times when I have been angry on another person's behalf. Can it be true of me, that the rare times I spill out the well of anger, I say that it is for other people only, that I am angry? If I can't feel angry on my own account, I lose my early warning system.
Whatever I feel, I need to look it square in the face and know it for what it is.
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Psalm 15:2--The one whose walk is blameless, who does what is righteous, who speaks the truth from their heart/
Zechariah 8:16--These are the things you are to do: Speak the truth to each other, and render true and sound judgment in your courts.
John 3:21--But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what they have done has been done in the sight of God.
John 8:32--"Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”