Honesty
When the word honesty was brought up as a discussion topic, my mind instantly went to being honest with others. While that is obviously valuable in relationships, it is also important to consider what it means to be honest with myself. As I look at myself, I believe that I have often struggled with personal honesty because I didn’t have enough self awareness to do so and quite frankly I think that I always thought I was a genuine person. As God has walked me through an honest assessment of myself, I have been able to see places where I have not always been completely honest with myself and others. God has revealed that I have struggled to be honest about my thoughts, feelings and motives which all drive my behavior. I believe that personal honesty in these areas is the foundation that frees me to be the kind of person I have always wanted to be and the person God desires for me to be as well.
As I have looked at life, I have found that my actions are not always what I would like them to be. I am now choosing to look honestly at myself to find how what I think often drives me. My thought life is where it all starts and a perfect example is when I am asked to do something. I now see how before I would have said yes without even thinking about it or asking myself if this is something I want to do or is it God’s will? As a people pleaser, perhaps yes is my trained response instead of an honest answer which I often didn’t even know. When I have not asked God for guidance and myself to think about it, I have ended up riding the waves of life feeling frustrated because I do things I don’t want to do. For me, this is best handled by telling someone I would like to think about it AND telling them when I will give them an answer to hold myself accountable. By allowing myself the time to reflect I can think and allow myself to feel, which hasn’t always been easy.
For me, knowing my feelings has been really tricky and required surrender and patience. Oftentimes when I started this process, my predominant feelings were anger and hurt. It took time and me asking God to show me my real feelings before I could see what was really bothering me. I think a part of the problem was that without daily reflection to purge myself of resentments I had picked up, as well as the hurts I had inflicted by asking them and God for forgiveness; I had over time gathered quite a luggage set of feelings that left me always one feeling away from a flood of emotion I could not control. This heavy load of emotions, as well as confusion about them, meant often my anger was really grief, my loneliness was fear, and my annoyance expectations of myself and others. It has taken the supernatural power of God to untangle this crazy mess and reveal to me my true feelings. Sometimes I still struggle with knowing what I honestly feel, but seeking that truth allows me to be genuine with myself and others. I now know that over time I formed beliefs based on my feelings which can and have often driven my behavior.
As I am learning to seek out my real feelings, I am learning the truth about my motives which are not always what I thought they were. I have found that often when I quickly say yes, without being aware of it, my people pleasing side believes that I have to or I should. Without even knowing it, I am driven by my desire to make others happy. Similarly, I may not want to say no because I am afraid of conflict and fearful of the other person being mad at me. So I can be motivated by my conflict avoidance and be dishonest with myself and the other person. Sometimes, I have pridefully thought I should tell someone else what to do, but it turns out that I was driven by my fear of facing my own problems or maybe even something bad happening to them. Other times, things I have believed about myself that are not necessarily true have driven my behavior. I have sometimes felt like I don’t measure up, so I use knowledge and information to be enough. I have been known to feel like a failure and a mess up so I make excuses when I make a mistake instead of owning up to it. All of these things are an identity issue that finds no truth in who God says I am. Part of honesty requires that I believe what God says about me and His truth. The truth is that I may make mistakes, but I am not a failure or a mess up and while I do not always have what it takes for every situation, with God I am enough.
Practice for Today
Honesty with myself requires that I have an open mind, willing spirit, and courageous heart to fearlessly look at my thoughts, feelings, and motives. When I ask God to reveal those to me and can see them, I may find things that affect my actions that I was completely unaware of. May I always be willing to allow what He reveals to shape me and be able to actually identify what I think and feel about something without being led by a torrent of emotion. My awareness will allow me to recognize patterns and help me to make conscious choices. I may still choose to say yes, however, it will be an honest, thoughtful, and aware answer.
1 Corinthians 3:18 Let no one deceive himself. If anyone among you thinks that he is wise in this age, let him become a fool that he may become wise.
John 8:32 and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”