My parents taught me, “Honesty is the best policy”. Although it is not quoted directly from scripture, the Bible is clear that honesty is an important quality. Dishonesty is even condemned in most of the Ten Commandments. A big part of honesty is truthfulness. I can’t remember ever lying to my parents because I valued their trust in me and I knew it would hurt them deeply if I ever lied to them. It wasn’t the punishment I feared; it was the fear of disappointing them and losing their trust.
That early training has carried over into all of my relationships. One of the reasons our marriage lasted fifty years is that it had a foundation of mutual trust and honesty. We both had personal relationships with God that required us to be honest in our relationship with each other. I have held many jobs in my life and in each of them I quickly earned the trust of my supervisors by being honest. In one situation, a jealous coworker spread a rumor about me that he was sure would get me fired. I was called into the Operation Manager’s office and asked to answer the accusation. I told the truth and even offered to take a polygraph. I was told that wouldn’t be necessary because my word was good enough for him. I not only kept my job, but was promoted to corporate trainer soon after; a position I held for seventeen years until my retirement. Honesty has definitely proven to be the best policy for me in so many ways.
Being honest with ourselves and even with God can sometimes be harder than being honest with other people; even though it is most important. There is a famous line in the movie A Few Good Men when from the witness stand the colonel shouts, “You can’t handle the truth!” There are some truths about our weaknesses that are hard for us to handle, so we not only try to hide them from others, we sugar coat them and bury them in the back of our subconscious mind. That tactic never works for long because our enemy, the devil, loves to remind us of them every chance he gets. We will never resolve them until we face them head on and ask God for the strength we need to overcome them.
We can even feel at times that God can’t handle our true feelings. We think God wants us to be His happy, obedient children; so we put on our smiling worship face for church or even for our private devotions. Do we really think we can fool the Creator who knows us better than we know ourselves? One of the times I felt closest to God was when I was very angry with Him and let my anger all come out in prayer. I had only been a Christian for less than three years when my mother was diagnosed with leukemia. I and every Christian I knew prayed day and night for her healing, but she became weaker and weaker then she died. How could a loving God allow that to happen to me after I gave my heart to Him and prayed so fervently for her healing? Through His Holy Spirit, God assured me that I will be with her again someday. Then, He sent a wonderful Christian woman to be my step-mother and to lovingly get me through high school.
As we read Psalms, we find that time after time the writer cries out to God, complaining about his troubles and weakness. Then, he praises God for answering his prayers. God sent His Son to bear your sins and mine on the cross. He not only can handle the truth about what we are going through; He wants us to share our true feelings (anger, frustration, pain, etc.) with Him! Take my word for it. That is the best policy of all.