I now have young adult children and my husband Bill who know me as well as anyone. They will tell me the Truth about myself even if it hurts my feelings initially. For example….. “Mom…you talk too loud.” Or, “Mom, you are walking too fast.” Or, “Mom/honey…please don’t sing.” (especially when they are trapped in the car with me) Or, “Mom, your breath stinks.” (now they only have to offer me gum or a mint for me to get the message) Or, most recently I was mispronouncing the word “diabetes” and Brewer called me out. Later I found out that I had done it so much that Brewer’s friends gave him a hard time about it. I have learned not to mind and to accept…the TRUTH, even if it stings or hurts just a little….. They tell me because they love me and they truly want to help me!!!! Who wants to have bad breath and subject others to it, or sound like an idiot by mispronouncing something? I even had a dear friend help me when the Back 9 journal/blog was just getting started. I took her advice and got a copy editor to work behind me looking for mistakes!! Fabulous advice…….so glad that with age has come maturity of realizing, not only am I not perfect (shocker) hehehe!, but I make a lot of mistakes and there are people who love and care about me enough to “speak the truth to me in love!”
When we become Christians, the Holy Spirit in some ways acts just as our family or close friends do when they speak truth into our lives. The Holy Spirit’s role is to show me/you/us truth about ourselves as a person. The Holy Spirit/God knows the truth of our own lives and souls, and He knows what needs to change and be revealed. I believe that if we ask the Holy Spirit to specifically show us what He wants to reveal to us about our growth, our souls and issues in our lives, HE WILL. It has been evident in my own life.
Truth is healing. We need as much of it from Him as He will give. And that is usually as much as we are ready, able, or strong enough to receive. Now I try to remind our family that, as painful as it may be, truth is always your friend. No matter how difficult it is to swallow, truth is reality and that is where ultimate safety, growth and God are. I/you/we all need to know the truth.
Truth can lead us to all kinds of places. For example, truth leads us to what is hurting us. Sometimes it leads us to what we need to change. At other times it leads us to what we need to do next in a relationship. Still, at other times it leads us to what our weaknesses or limitations are, some of which we are not ready to deal with yet. But whatever the truth is, it is our friend. It is also where God lives.
When we hear and accept the truth from God and follow the Holy Spirit’s lead, we are actually “sowing to please the Spirit” as Paul refers to it. He states in Galatians 5:25, “Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit.”
From my own personal experience, I have found many ways the Holy Spirit speaks to me personally: God’s Word (the Bible), sermons, great Christian books (like Andy Stanley’s book that I just journaled about), family, close Christian friends who have earned the right to speak truth into my life (people who have demonstrated they care), Christian counseling, and sometimes complete strangers. One very specific way the Holy Spirit has spoken to me for years is when something stays in my mind without my trying to think about it. I have recognized the difference between my own obsessive worry about things and the Spirit’s gently “camping out” in my brain. He will just sit there constantly with an issue until I deal with it.
A second way the Holy Spirit will speak to me is that the subject in my mind will come up randomly by different people multiple times (people who don’t know each other even) and in different contexts. For example, just recently I was on vacation and in my quiet time the Holy Spirit impressed upon me to memorize a certain part of scripture. In church the Sunday after we got home, the sermon happened to be on that specific scripture. If that wasn’t clear enough to me, the new book I had downloaded on my Kindle and started to read that Monday had the SAME SCRIPTURE in the first chapter……….I had already copied the scripture on a card, but I said, “OK God, I am going to have it done before the end of the week!!!” I love it when that happens. It gives me great confidence and encouragement of the presence of God in my life! The one thing I have learned….is that it starts with my carved out designated time to meet with HIM!!!!
I have learned and am enjoying more than ever on the Back 9 the meaning of John 8:32, “Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”
I encourage you to seek Truth and Let God set you Free!! Awesome place to live!