Proverbs 12:22-23 "Lying lips are abomination to the LORD: but they that deal truly are his delight. A prudent man concealeth knowledge: but the heart of fools proclaimeth foolishness."

I was born with a strong desire to please people. Self-sacrifice was many times worth it if I could get affirmation. This generally meant my parent's and teachers... thankfully I was sheltered and this trait was not exploited. As I grew, this sometimes meant that in order to please someone, the story I told them would be "tailored" to them. In the beginning stages of maturity, I didn't have the discernment to know how that could easily lead to lying. Eventually, I saw what I was doing as wrong and developed a strong desire for the truth in every area of my life, even when it was painful.

First, that meant that I just didn't talk in public as much. There are too many nuances and social expectations that multiply exponentially with each added person that challenge a dedication to truth if you have not developed that trait in the public arena. It's one thing to be brutally honest with yourself, but to keep that distinction in casual conversation is often easily construed to make you appear as if you think you are better than others, or cold and unfeeling... sometimes it's just better to keep quiet when you're trying to learn to speak only in truth.

Eventually, this meant that I became a better listener. I learned to more accurately see what someone was feeling and trying to say that their words weren't conveying. I realized that people have so much built up inside of them from trying to verbally prance through the social arena where frank speaking isn't exactly encouraged, and everyone seems to just be speaking at each other with few listening, that someone who would just listen to them would eventually let them get past the fluff and tell you what they really felt. This heightened my desire to say what was true to me and to speak what I knew with conviction.

I'm still an evolving truth speaker. I constantly come away from conversations with a pricked conscience and find myself repenting, yet again, for careless words. But I'm learning, and figuring out that the next step for me is not only speaking truth, but love. Looking at others through the black and white lens of only truth is disheartening and easily becomes judgmental.

Ephesians 4:14-16

"That we henceforth be no more children, tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the sleight of men, and cunning craftiness, whereby they lie in wait to deceive; But speaking the truth in love, may grow up into him in all things, which is the head, even Christ: From whom the whole body fitly joined together and compacted by that which every joint supplieth, according to the effectual working in the measure of every part, maketh increase of the body unto the edifying of itself in love."

When I let love be the motivation behind the truth I am saying, it is a healing experience-sometimes for both of us. There will always be human error in every human gathering. My natural tendency is to isolate myself from people to minimize the room for error... and while I will never be the extrovert and will always need time for myself, I need people and God provides His grace for this. A verse that I have been clinging to that addresses this is 1 John 1:7.

"If we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship one with another and the blood of Jesus Christ cleanses every sin."