Second Kind of Pain ...

We have talked extensively about how to reduce the pain of evil in your life.  This pain is caused by the actions you take, the behavior you have been addicted to, or the patterns you simply could not conquer on your own.  It is all self inflicted pain.  But there is a second kind of pain that invades your life.  It is every bit as big and ugly as the pain you have struggled with from inside, but this one you have even less ability to avert.  It is in fact pain caused by the actions, patterns, and behaviors of others – the second kind of pain.

Take the pain of betrayal as an example, someone betrays the love or trust you place in that person, and does something that is completely in their own self interest, at the pure expense of your interests.  It hurts.  You have been wronged.  The other person is clearly at fault.  You may have done nothing to invite, or aggravate, or cause this betrayal to occur.  But no matter what the cause, the end result is the same; you are wounded by the deeds of another.

Examine betrayal a bit closer and you see more clearly its cause and effect.  In general the specific action of betrayal does not cause nearly as much pain, as the knowledge that the trust or love between you has been intentionally broken.  This is the lion’s share of the pain it causes.  Forethought, foreknowledge, that trust would be broken, by intention, to accomplish a betrayal for other reasons.  It is the heart that is wounded most of all in these acts.  It is trust and love that are the targets of betrayal much more than anything else.  The master of evil would try to teach you NOT to ever love or trust again.  He would have you act prudently and restrain your feelings, trust, and love next time until they can be earned.  This is the common sense approach to love, as influenced by evil, and as intended by it.

Most evil and pain is targeted primarily at the human heart.  It is through the human heart that evil can do the most damage to the heart of God.  As His heart is directly impacted by the travails brought upon your heart.  When you cry from pain, God suffers.  He longed to take away your pain from the self inflicted things that you were a victim of, now He longs no less, to remove you from the harm the evil one is sure to bring to your doorstep.  Evil targets your heart, in order to shut it down.  The goal of evil is to prevent you from sharing, prevent you from loving, from trusting, from giving to another.  The goal of evil is to turn your heart to stone.

Pain is an excellent tool to convert flesh to stone.  Repeated pain makes the process even faster, and more thorough.  Betrayal sucks.  It hurts to have trust sent back to you in a careless manner.  It hurts to have love rejected.  It hurts to find out that your real feelings of love, were only echoed in the “words” of another, while their true feelings were given to someone completely different.  No one can feel good about any of this.  But before the sadness can begin to cloud the judgment, look deeper at the unfortunate situation.

First, you must ask yourself the realistic question as to your own role in what transpires.  Healthy relationships, between people who give 100% of themselves 100% of the time, do not suffer nearly as often from betrayal.  Often there is a pain-point involved that drives a wedge between people that sometimes one person may not even be aware of.  Or more often, that the offender may simply wish to deny, even exists.  Nagging, hurting words, unintended disrespect, lack of attention, lack of priority – all these conditions can drive a wedge between two hearts.  There is no good excuse for betrayal, but often there are reasons this condition develops.  To stop this before it begins requires open, honest communication.  You must get through to your partner how you feel, and how deeply you feel it.

The old adage “it takes two to tango” applies equally well to problems in romantic relationships.  But there are often much larger, much more obvious impediments, hiding in plain sight that could have been accounted for.  How do you structure a long term loving relationship on a foundation of sand?  Or more directly, how do you build something of value between two people based on a lie?  Very often men and women present themselves with one face to a perspective partner, only to find the real person quite different once in a committed relationship.  This dramatic about face is almost sure to ruin what happiness there was between them, as that was built on illusion, and now must be reconstructed in full.

Another lie that causes people to build castles on the sand is one where there are more than simply 2 people in the romantic picture.  You can have strong desire for more than one person at a time, but this is not love, it is merely desire.  You can have strong feelings of kinship, friendship, and happiness when being with more than one person at a time, but this is not love, it is friendship.  Romantic love is to result in intimacy.  Intimacy requires ONLY 2 people.  It is impossible to achieve consensual intimacy between more than 2 people at a time, as true intimacy is hard enough to find even between 2.  To get 3 or more people to agree on anything is nearly impossible, but to agree on how to have a romantic intimate relationship is fantasyland.

So to invest yourself in a relationship designed for two, but knowingly impacting more than two, is a recipe for pain.  Both kinds of pain.  You cannot expect the rules that would govern a righteous relationship to apply to one knowingly based on a lie.  What you can almost certainly expect is to hurt the one you claim to love.  To hurt the one you claim to have stopped loving.  And most certainly to hurt yourself in the process, as you find the things you believed were entirely based on lies that could not be sustained.  This is a guaranteed result from pursuing relationships where there are more than 2 people involved.  Those that choose this path often choose it again, and again.  This means if you pursue a cheater, expect to be cheated upon.  If you find yourself as the cheater, your fate may well be sealed as a cheater, until you bring it to the foot of the Cross, and surrender it there permanently.  Cheating is a condition designed to rob you of your heart.

Sometimes the culprit between two people is the lack of direction, or lack of knowledge one of them carries.  It is easier to build something when you know what you want.  It is much harder to build something when you truly have no idea what you want, or perhaps worse yet, no idea what you should want.  In cases like these, council from the Lord should be at the top of the agenda.  If the memory of a past love is clouding present judgment you should not be moving forward with someone else.  Rebound relationships are not known to be lasting.  You should obtain clarity based in the submission of your will, BEFORE you pursue your romantic relationships.  His will is always better for you that your will.  And being led is always better than taking the lead.

The real question becomes, if you can learn to surrender your will enough, and remove enough of the self inflicted pain from your life, will it reduce the second kind of pain as well?  I have to believe it will.  It seems to me that by offending others less, and by avoiding situations where the outcomes are already known to be painful, you would lead a much happier life.  By valuing service over self, you invest yourself far less in what you expect to get out of relationships, and realize that your investment itself is the reward of the relationship.  People count.  Relationships count.  And when surrendered to Christ, you realize that self counts for nothing.  It is through Christ alone, we can find immunity to betrayal.  It is through Christ alone, that the love of our relationships can reach its full potential.  It is through Christ alone that we can learn to share our hearts, share our love, share our trust and not shy away when we find it misplaced …

Looking Back ...

 “There is nothing new under the sun.”  One of the wisest men in the world uttered these words almost three thousand years ago; and while Space Shuttles, the Internet, and mobile phones might tend to offer evidence to the contrary in the physical world, where it comes to the characters of men, he remains correct.  The same strengths, the same weaknesses; we are consistent creatures if nothing else.  Perhaps better stated, he might have said … “people don’t change, they just get older.”

But if this is true then transformation of character is impossible, or unlikely at best.  12 step programs seem to support this idea – once an alcoholic, always an alcoholic (however in recovery).  Most every addiction is considered a life-long condition or problem.  Addicts may not use drugs or chemicals for decades of time but even then they are still considered “in recovery”.  When an addict slips, they call it “relapse”, and this is even considered a part of the cycle these poor unfortunates go through.

That got me to thinking, what kind of self-destructive actions do we see ourselves commit over and over.  When we repeat behavior we know to be self-destructive, is this not the definition of “addiction”.  Sometimes we do things we know will hurt others, and ultimately ourselves, but we do it anyway.  No I am not talking about drugs or chemical abuse.  I am talking about bragging, arrogance, pride.  I am talking about judging others, condemning others, and ridiculing others.  I am talking about trying to “help” someone else get to heaven by making them drop everything they believe, and accepting everything that we believe, as if we had a complete lock on truth. 

There are many ways to screw up your life and the lives of others.  Not everything is drugs, murder, and theft.  A lot of subtle words, behaviors, and attitudes are enough to mess things up royally, and what is more, we know it.  We know it, when we do it, before we do it, and after we do it.  Yet we do it anyway – could this be defective character addictive disorder?  If you know you should not do something and you do it anyway, how do you rationalize it?  Stupidity?  Addiction? What?

The really interesting parallel between addictive disorders, and sins (the embracing of evil) we seem not to be able to stop doing, is the number of years we persist in doing them.  This is NOT a one-time “oops”.  This is behavior others begin to come to know you by when they know your weaknesses.  If you gossip, trust me, people know it.  You may think it is all innocent, all fairly quiet, etc..  But in truth there are those who know full well it is YOU that gossips.  They consider it one of your faults.  There are those that avoid you because they know this about you. 

The same is true about liars.  A liar thinks his deceptions hold forever, but they do not.  Over time facts emerge, and their lies are revealed, sometimes faster than they imagine.  Once this comes to light, most trust is gone.  Why?  Because most people think those that lie will do it again and again.  This phenomenon holds for those who consider themselves the “cream of the crop”; those that consider themselves smarter, better looking, better educated, better informed.  It takes much less time for others to see these traits in you and peg this weakness.

Then re-consider the idea – people do not change, they just get older.  Why?  Well, all these character deficiencies tend not to be life threatening so we do not treat them with the same urgency as a drug addiction.  Just because I gossip, my life, wealth, and health are not threatened, so even though I know I should not, I do.  The effects of gossip can be just as devastating to others as theft, or worse, but those guilty of gossip rationalize this fact.  They do not seek treatment for the condition.

Liars are thought always to be liars, as history of dealing with people tends to prove this out.  Suspicion remains high because no one believes this is a one-time phenomenon.  And lies rarely place personal wealth, or health at immediate risk, so the liar does not seek any help to fix this condition.  They believe they can simply work harder at it.  They can quit any time they feel like it, even if they seldom ever feel like quitting.

How many defects could be described this way?  Maybe all of them.  And if living the Christian life is supposed to be better, what is the deal with Christians doing every single shortcoming non-believers do?  Should there not be a difference between believers and not?  How come they look so much alike?  Could this be why non-believers refuse to accept the gospel of Jesus, because they see no difference between the saved and unsaved?  And if the only difference between a believer and a non-believer after doing self destructive behavior, is the guilt of the believer, logic would dictate – “why bother”.

The wounds are self inflicted.  And the cure is avoided at all costs.  Transformation of character is actually possible.  There are alcoholics who have not touched a drop in years, perhaps none before they ever die.  There are those who used to be hooked on drugs to the point of death, and miraculously did not die, but changed instead.  What is the commonality between those who are off of chemical addiction – they recognized their condition, it’s severity, and the need for OUTSIDE intervention to get over it.  12 step programs recognize the need and existence of a Higher Power.

Believers call that Higher Power – Jesus Christ, the only son of God.  Yet most believers are comfortable living with every defect, every failure, every weakness of character they were born with.  Instead of experiencing the transforming power of Jesus, our Creator God, the only entity in the Universe capable of transforming dust into man, and our worthless character into something useful; we sit complacent and therefore unaffected.  There is no visible difference between believers and non-believers in general because neither one sees the urgency in fixing the defects in character that lead to self-destructive behavior.

While we know better, we elect to excuse our conditions rather than pursue changing them.  This comes from life-long efforts to change ourselves by ourselves.  Over time we give up, realizing we stink at changing ourselves.  We come to accept that people do not really change they just get older.  Instead of experiencing the transforming power of our Creator God, we assume His role for ourselves, and try to do the work on us.  We refuse to surrender, and instead take the reins in our own hands.  We want to be in control.  We want to fix it.  Just give us a minute and watch.  Of course if you do watch someone trying to treat their own character defects what you see, is just like what you see when you watch a heroin addict try to fix himself – relapse.

The only real cure comes from outside of ourselves.  It comes from the surrender of our will to our Higher Power.  It comes when the God we serve is allowed by us, to fix us.  When we see our condition, and surrender, NOT work harder at it.  Surrender is the gateway to victory, much like admission of an alcoholic is the first step towards recovery.  Giving up, and giving in, may seem counter-intuitive to real transformation, but this is where the real POWER of our God is revealed, and where the miracle really occurs. 

The difference Jesus brings to your character is not some temporary abstinence that goes away on a whim.  The changes are real.  The transformation is noticeable.  Those who know you will know you have changed.  They will see it.  They will be curious how it could have ever happened.  And the beauty of the truth will be that you will not know how you changed, only that you did when you finally surrendered to Christ.  This is what the world is waiting for.  This will be the marker of a change in our time.  When there is a noticeable difference in believers and non-believers, those who do not believe will seek out those who do, to find out how this happened.

The entire process can begin with you.  You can change.  You can be someone who suffers less, someone who is free from the pain that evil brings to your life.  You can stop the behavior and actions that lead to your self destruction, by simply putting the work of change into the only hands capable of carrying it out.  Instead of beating your head against a wall that will not give way, give it over to the One who knows no walls.  Transformation is the gift of Christ.  It is just like the gift of Salvation, we transform into new creatures, by the regenerating power of our Creator God, there is no other way …

Lies We Cling To ...

Is there a difference between Hope and Delusion?  Aren’t they more or less the same - Ignoring the facts about a situation in order to feel better about it?  The non-believer will challenge hope based in spirituality as self-delusion based in superstition.  How does one combat that logic, should they even try.

The basic problem in this instance traces back to marketing.  You see many of us begin to believe whatever marketing plans we pay attention to, and over time assume them to be fact based.  The longer one holds a belief about something, the more firmly their belief becomes defacto truth.  It’s like that text in the Bible says, you know the one, “God helps those who help themselves”.  However, to find this text, one would have to write it in the margins as it is not found in the entire Bible, in any translation; Nor is the text “Cleanliness is next to Godliness”. 

Both of these wonderfully trite sayings convey a hidden message implied in the wording – you must do something to gain help or blessing from God.  This concept is the foundation of every false religion on planet earth as it relies on the strength of men to find their own salvation, a fate none have ever accomplished.  But marketing being what it is, the sayings go on, and many people still hold them to be true.  For churches who hold to a works-based, i.e. man does things to save himself, salvation – these sayings are perfectly acceptable even after they are revealed to have no basis in scripture.

I wish our attention to marketing was limited to errors within doctrines we hold to, however, it is not.  Take for instance all those sins we continue to commit.  Herein lays the mystery of iniquity.  If we know that diversion from God is diversion from all that is good.  Then sin consists of all that is evil.  Knowing that evil is designed around destroying everything it touches, why would we continue to choose to embrace it? 

We know better.  We absolutely know better intellectually.  It just makes sense to avoid evil wherever we can.  Even a non-believer sees the logic in this.  So why does logic cave in to what otherwise must be described as stupidity, or insanity?  Perhaps it is the marketing of evil that has so conditioned us to accept it, that we are clinging to lies, rather than letting go.  To believe there is some sort of hope at the bottom of a bottle of alcohol is self-delusion.  To believe there is truly some sort of escape during the high of cocaine, rather than simply inevitable delay of whatever root cause of the problem is, is again self-delusion.

Why is it so commonly accepted that sex with someone different (strange) is better?  Why is the destruction of intimacy embraced by so many men trying to cover up their own insecurities, and so many women attempting to keep up with or get back at men.  Just from a purely logical standpoint it does not make sense.  Being intimate with someone you know, someone you trust, and someone you can share your innermost desires with should make the sex ten times better than with some stranger who let’s face it is only out for themselves.  They could give a crap about you, your feelings, your desires, your dreams, or anything about you as a person.  You are only viable as a tool to achieve an orgasm.  After that your usefulness is completely obliterated.  And NO, no-one respects you in the morning – you are either the whore or the whore-hopper – neither seems too great a tag line.

But our entire society seems bent on perpetuating this lie.  American media clings to it.  American advertising clings to it.  And worse, our marriages are hardly unions where the two participants share their inner most thoughts, desires, fantasies, etc. with each other.  Even in marriage intimacy is lacking, and may account for why people only share these deep seated things with folks they do not expect to see again.  After all, if sleeping around does not make a man a man, then what does exactly?  If varied sexual experience is not something a man wants in his woman, then maybe I’m just used goods? 

We must cling to our lies, or learn we have debased ourselves.  We must hold on to the myths that define our sexual behaviors rather than examine root causes, and real facts.  And truthfully, a careful examination of our sexual behavior reveals the real target of evil was much deeper – our ability to be intimate.  Intimacy was always what evil was out to destroy.  If evil could succeed in destroying our ability to be intimate with someone else, it would have succeeded in destroying our ability to trust, to communicate, and even to value the humanity in others.  People become mere objects if intimacy dies, not far behind it, the family unit dies.

This phenomenon is true no matter what race, age, or even sexual orientation you are.  Destroy the ability to be intimate, and you have degraded the very fabric of society.  Monogamy has been ridiculed as some sort of stringent law dictated by a mean-spirited God in the past.  Non-believers, and Christians who have bought in to the idea that strange is better, share a fundamental belief that monogamy is simply impossible.  It is not.  Where virginity used to be prized, now it too is ridiculed again.

There is a reason why only virgins were selected for human sacrifice in the past, because evil being evil, it wanted to kill purity wherever it could.  It then follows, there is a reason why eventually it was just children who were brought for victims of sacrifice (read between the lines).  In the culture of Satan, whatever is horrific is best, so to kill is a great thing to them, but to kill innocence is even better.  This is where any form of diversion from God eventually leads to.  The killing of innocence.  It did not start or end on the cross, it was clearly exemplified on the cross.  Satan and his servants have been killing the purest of God’s children for as many years as we have been alive.  From Able just outside the garden of Eden, to the poor child who dies today of avoidable starvation just down the street from you, evil is bent on the destruction of anything associated with good.

And since most of us would cringe at the idea of killing our young, evil must disguise itself, and learn to peddle softer ideas that are not so immediately obvious to us.  Ideas like there is no need of intimacy, only of biology.  Orgasm is king.  Relationships are just too much work for not enough return on investment.  Why bother with forgiveness, and growing closer together as a couple when you should focus only on your needs, on your wants, on your desires.  If your partner does not understand, find another partner.  This is yet another lie we cling to that causes divorce rates to spiral in this country, even inside believing homes.

Even with all these facts in evidence we cling to the lies we have been told to believe.  This in short, is the difference between hope and self-delusion.  I can hope to learn better how to forgive.  I can hope to learn better how to love.  I can hope my situation will improve even when it is grim because of the love my Creator God still has for me as a person.  But I will not delude myself into clinging to lies that I know lead to destruction.  I will reject the idea that more is always better.  I will reject the concept it is impossible to be happy with only one.  I will learn to serve rather than wait to be served.  And in so doing I will learn how the society of Heaven operates, and be released from bondage to self-inflicted pain …

To Compromise or Not ...

No peace is possible without compromise.  We tend to reject the idea of compromising our values, or the truths to which we cling, therefore peace with evil seems unlikely.  But are there times when two people disagree over what truth is, when a compromise might be the best solution?  Fundamentalists think not.  Extremists think not.  Where should the servants of God fall in this area?

The problem with truth is our own tendency to try to define it in absolute terms.  Our desire is to remove any gray area and force truth to be presented in clear black-and-white terms.  We expect truth to be simple, childlike, and easy enough to be understood.  Yet how quickly we dismiss simple truth, as too simplistic; take for example the phrase “God is Love”.  We refuse to accept this simple truth as all-encompassing, but treat it merely as a partial definition of what God truly “is”.  Yet we are completely unable to define “Love” or “God” in absolute terms.  We have a great deal of knowledge about both, but with all our combined wisdom, we remain fools.  Christians argue about the definition of truth with the world, and worse, with each other.  We try to enforce our understanding of truth on each other, and claim this as our obligation.  Yet when Christ gave his final command to His followers before leaving for heaven, He simply directed we “love each other”.  The world would recognize us as His followers if we adhere to this simple directive.  He did not say to us “expound truth”.  Rather the Holy Spirit would “reveal” truth to us as our humility increased and we became ready to receive it.  Only the proud believe they “know” absolute truth.

The Pharisees in the time of Christ were such devout, serious, religious leaders.  They were proud of their traditions, created to insure they would be unable to break God’s law again and suffer another exile to a foreign land.  They setup lists of do’s and don’ts trying to guard against infringement of the law.  But to no avail.  In talking about the simple truth “thou shalt not commit adultery” – the wisdom of the day interpreted this as do not have sexual expression with a married person (whether you are married or not).  This is in fact a very strict definition or interpretation of this precept.  It is so strict in fact, that it ignores many other related issues attacking the minds of the people both then and now.  Christ elaborated on this truth when He said, “I tell you that if you look at another woman and lust after her, you have already committed adultery in your mind”.  This additional insight into the truth addressed the motives we carry in our hearts and minds.  As it happens our motives, imaginations and thoughts are as much to be addressed by this precept as our actual actions.  Was the first interpretation wrong?  No.  It was simply incomplete.  The Pharisees were proud of their religious fervor, and did not take it well to be corrected by this author of the Law.

Christians read these passages in the New Testament and denigrate the Pharisees as too proud, arrogant, and full of themselves.  The same Christians then turn right around and commit the same acts, in the same way, and choose to be totally ignorant of their own faults – despite having just read the example of the Pharisees of old.  We make fun of them; then imitate them word-for-word.  How is it different for us to claim to have absolute knowledge of truth, than it was for the learned Pharisees of the day of Christ?  In fact, the Pharisees did have “an” understanding of truth.  But they did not complete the knowledge.  Are we any different?  We judge so often and forgive so little.  We strive for justice and equality more than accepting a lesser portion, or an unfair result, in order to love our offender.  We very seldom turn the other cheek, and instead punch with the other fist.  The world may be at war with us.  But why do we choose to go to war with it?  The unenlightened are not our enemies, they are our family.  Those that do not accept the beauty of the truth of Christ are not swine.  They are you and I at a different stage of our lives.  Were it not for the mercy of God, that person you despise for not accepting truth might well be you.

Christians would have less cause to compromise with each other, if they had more humility and willingness to learn in their understanding of truth.  Perhaps heaven is big enough to accept an entirely different kind of Christian than you are today.  Perhaps the changes you are so keenly aware of that “need” to take place in another person’s life, will wind up taking place in yours.  After all, if you truly allow the Holy Spirit to lead you into ALL truth, then He will.  It may not be others who change as a result, it may be you.  This growth is so often blocked by our own mix of pride, tradition, and understanding of truth.  Maybe it is we who need to “unlearn what we have learned”.  How much deeper could be our understanding of even basic truths if we did not so casually dismiss the need to study further since we already know about them?  We think we have all the knowledge we need about a particular topic and dismiss the need to know more.  This was the arrogance of the Pharisees and it is our arrogance as well.

The Martyrs of old set an example for us we tend to be so reluctant to imitate.  They did NOT compromise their faith, or the truths they clung to.  Not even in word (all they had to do to save themselves was lie about what they believed) or deed.  But they did not disobey the laws either.  They lived under the laws of the land.  When those laws became in conflict with their faith, they chose to remain faithful to their faith.  But this faithfulness to God was accompanied by NON-violent behavior.  They made no wars to enforce their beliefs.  They did not seek to have violence come to them, but when it did, they faced it with quiet dignity.  Sometimes martyrs sang hymns of praise to God while being tortured by their enemies.  They made no compromise with evil, but made no violence against the unrepentant.  They loved their enemies enough not to try to kill their way out of danger.  Instead they prayed for their captors. 

Those Christians who advocate violence do dishonor to their Lord.  They resemble more the ranks of the fundamentalists around the world who have embrace violence as the solution to their issues.  Violence has a long history of resolving nothing.  Rather it inspires generations and generations to come to follow its addictive precepts.  Revenge is never fully satisfied.  Peace is never achieved.  Learning to allow the differences of others to exist in your world is the beginning of productive compromise.  This tolerance is the beginning of understanding between two people otherwise at odds.  Understanding then enhances truth.  It is a beginning…

Little White Lies & the Lessor of 2 Evils ...

There are times when almost all the choices you face seem to be of one nature of evil or another.  The concept of “little white lies” stems from the idea it is better to tell someone what they want to hear than to tell them what we really think.  After all, what woman really wants to hear that she DOES look fat in that dress.  Or how do you tell your mom that her apple pie is not quite as good as the ones sold in the local grocer.  And lastly, what man wants to hear that he is not the greatest lover in the world?   It seems better to lie and spare the feelings of another than to tell the truth and hurt them.  After all these lies do not hurt anyone do they?

This line of reasoning has led some to believe that it is impossible if not impractical to always tell the truth.  They posit that truth must always contain room for variance given the situation or else many would be wounded by it.  Here is the problem with this line of thinking, the nature of evil is most insidious, and is actually hurting both the person who lies, and the person who is lied to.  The person telling the lie is learning a lesson in so doing that expediency is better than integrity.  This seemingly innocent act of trying to spare the feelings of another can easily translate into more elaborate excuses to avoid any kind of confrontation, avoid making personal mistakes, and finally to directly attempt to mislead others as to the actions and motives we take.  The path from seemingly innocent lies to ‘necessary’ lies to outright deception is a short one.  The person learns quickly to become a liar rather than face truth in any situation.  The judgment of ‘when’ a lie is called for, becomes clouded with what is in our self-interest (the real root of all evil).  And so, one lie leads to another, the complex web we weave engulfs us, and we wind up breaking the trust of those we care about or need the most in our lives.

Then too, the person whose feelings we were trying to spare is actually hurt by our lies.  If the woman truly does look fat in that dress, others are going to notice it as well.  Do we really do her a favor by lying, and allow her to be ridiculed by other women who will FAR less caring than ourselves.  If she is mocked by others, won’t she come to find she cannot wear this dress anyway?  And your assurances she looks fine will not help her undo the hurt inflicted by others.  In this situation it would have been better to express the truth in love.  ALWAYS to express truth in LOVE; without this method of delivery, truth becomes a baseball bat we hit each other with.  But done in love, we could simply reach out to her, and let her know, this dress does not make her look the best we know she can.  The dress is not worthy of the beauty she carries, and perhaps another color, material, cut, size, or style would be better suited to her than this ‘off-the-rack’ piece she has selected for trial.  Obviously not every dress or piece of clothing helps us look our best, which is why we try them on to see.  And sometimes we gain or lose weight leaving the excellent fit of a garment behind us.  It is OK to point this out in love.

The truth can also be used as a weapon and often this is why the idea of little-white-lies seems preferable.  Instead of confronting the truth in love, people use truth to state the obvious without ANY concern for how it will be interpreted.  Instead of helping the girlfriend see that the dress is the problem, we turn the tables and make the girlfriend the problem – pointing out that she is just too fat for this dress.  After all, her obesity endangers her health.  It is not very sexually attractive.  Fat people are discriminated against by almost everyone in every situation.  They are ridiculed for lack of self-control when it comes to eating.  They tend not to get the job.  They tend not to get the promotion.  Their size is something they face constant negativity about, and now we, the very ones they love and whose opinion matters most to them – have joined the condemnatory crowd.  Stating the obvious benefits of ‘dropping 50 pounds’ sounds to us like we are doing them a favor.  After all that is the truth.  But the ‘truth’ we are expressing lacks all compassion, does not offer a viable solution for the dress they are trying on now, and they will have to wear something now – do we expect them to look horrible until the 50 pounds are gone?  This approach of clubbing them over the head with a baseball bat of truth smacks of evil.  It is not the truth that is evil.  It is the delivery mechanism that is evil.  In short it is our selfish motives, and lack of concern for the feelings of another that is purely evil.

Constructive criticism is possible when there is a foundation of love between the recipient and the delivery person.  We can help our mom with the substandard pie by several means – first by remembering this is only our opinion, perhaps others would find a different result; next by offering to expand the recipe by adding cinnamon or raisons, or removing the walnuts, adding a graham cracker crust, putting some raspberry puree into the mix, you get the idea; and finally by showing gratitude that mom cares enough to try to make something for our enjoyment, even if the taste does not suit our palette.  She is far less likely to be offended by the truth when delivered in love.  And longer term, our relationship is strengthened because she knows when we do tell her we enjoyed something – we really mean it.  The joy we share over something becomes even more real when we do not have the slightest doubt that this is simply a little white lie.

As for the man who is not the greatest lover in the world, most men are keenly anxious to become one.  They are most of the time very willing to accept direction in this endeavor.  You do not need to tell them exactly what to do or where to do it, but if you simply react strongly enough in a positive manner to the things you like, trust me, the man will push that button more often than a video game.  There are ways to improve the performance of your sexual expression (remember this is our most intimate and vulnerable area of a relationship) that only a committed partner is going to be able to do.  It takes great trust and knowledge of the love of another, to be able to communicate effectively regarding this topic.  But once again, knowing there is a mutually GREAT sex life, is of more value than gold to most men and women in the world.

There are other situations when the lesser of two evils seems the only ‘good’ choice.  For example, better to hide Jews during the holocaust than to tell the truth and allow the Nazi’s to find them, and kill them.  A lie told, better than to be an accomplice in a murder.  Here again, these situations are posed without a thought about the prelude, or what other options are available.  Most of the lesser-of-two evil decisions are posed as only option A or option B, there are no other choices, but this is mistaken.  Take our Nazi example, being faced with this decision implies several things.  We did little or nothing to stop the situation from progressing to the point it has.  Were there protests against the Nazi’s back before they came to power?  When they announced their policies, did we silently accept them, or did we begin to actively oppose them?  If we wanted to avoid being faced with this choice perhaps we should have left behind our worldly possessions, and moved away from Germany when the Nazi’s first came to power.  Or perhaps we feel compelled to join the enemies of the German government and make war against them.  Or perhaps as Christians, we feel compelled to help our Jewish brothers as much as possible, and be willing to face their fate as our own as a result.  The need for our own self-preservation is what dominates our decisions in this entire process.  We as Christians, should not feel this need so keenly, as we know our existence is not confined simply to this world of evil.  We should be empowered to act boldly for good.  But most lack faith, and prefer to go along with an evil government edict than stand against it and suffer for truth.

Very often in lesser-of-two-evil situations there may be yet another option that would extricate you from the situation you face.  One REALLY big one that exists in every situation, is prayer to our Creator God.  While we may lack the wisdom, strength, or ability to solve a problem – God is not so confined.  Calling on Him to get us out of the problems we so often wander into, is a smart way to resolve the situation.  Many a miracle has been performed that defied logic, and sometimes even physics, to extricate a believer from an impossible situation.  Remember the 3 Hebrew captives taken to Babylon, and asked to bow to the idol of the King Nebuchadnezzar or be thrown into the fiery furnace.  They stood for God, did not bow, and were willing to die to make the point.  They were in fact, thrown into this furnace.  They did NOT avoid their fate from their decision.  But God intervened and they walked in the flames unhurt.  Do we have the faith of the martyrs of old, who were willing to die for their beliefs and their choice to serve God and reject evil?  This kind of faith takes time to build.  It too takes a relationship to build.  But there is always another option to every problem we face.

It is possible to embrace a life of truth, if first we embrace a life of love.  If love governs our every thought, motive, and action – then truth becomes our ally and our lives are enriched as a result.  Do not fear your confrontations with the world, but approach them all in a humble spirit of love and concern.  Truth delivered in this way, will have the greatest effect possible, and become the most enriching experience we can have …