“Honesty is a hard attribute to find when we all want to seem like we’ve got it all figured out” Lifehouse sing in their song Trying.
Honesty…..transparency…..being real…..openness…..vulnerability……All these words are very popular words in the churches of 2008. And Hallelujah that there is a growing awareness of the importance of being honest, transparent, real, open and vulnerable! It’s much to prefer from closing down everything, shoveling everything under the carpet, keeping up appearances, having a straight religious face and other similar alternatives, but there is still much confusion about what these things mean.
Over the years I’ve met many young people who claim to be real and honest and who unfortunately get respect from other people for being so. You know the types, I’m sure. Often they’re categorized by being very honest and real especially about all the negative things they see in others and in their church, missions organization, etc. Very rarely do they have anything positive or constructive to say. They seem to be convinced that the Spiritual gift of discernment can be boiled down to noticing what’s wrong with everybody else and then talking to all other people about somebody’s issues or problems. They don’t have much interest in changing, because as they say “I am just the way I am” (which probably has to be my least favorite statement from a Christian’s mouth. A Christian who claims to have the Spirit of the living God in him….!). They rarely learn anything, because they’re convinced that they know most things already and really should be teaching the world. They don’t take responsibility for how they affect other people, they seem to think that they can do whatever they feel like and other people need to change if they don’t like it. They like to hide behind their hurts which have made them the way they are today. Often they claim that they have been healed of their problems, so I’m the one who have a problem if I still claim that they’re hurting….
In my four years working with discipleship training I have met quite a few people who match the description above. They have many different skin colors and passports, so it’s not a problem that can be nailed down to one country or a certain part of the world.
It’s true that God wants us to be honest, open, vulnerable, real and transparent. No doubt about that. A true disciple rests in who he or she is in God and has no problem sharing about defeats, shortcomings, weaknesses as well as victories, gifts and strengths. He is a broken cup, and he knows it. No pretenses are necessary. He is broken, he knows he is and will always be and he trusts God to be the one living and loving through him.
My Mac-dictionary tells me that to lament is to: express grief, sorrow, disappointment, regret, complaints or frustrations. I have been thinking about laments these last days since Saturday where I met up with my wife Jeannette’s Bible School group and read through the two books of Samuel. What stood out to me was king David and his life. So full of so many problems. He was on the run from Saul who wanted to kill him for 8-10 years hiding in the wilderness. Where did David get the strength from to not take matters into his own hand and kill Saul on the different occasions where he had the chance? A Bible teacher I heard yesterday suggested that we need to look to David’s Psalms of lament to find the answer.
David used the Psalms of lament to vent to God, to get his hatred, frustrations, anger, feelings of loneliness, etc. out. He was not afraid to invite God into all his feelings and thoughts both the good, the bad and the really ugly (look at for example Psalm 109 if you want to see some ugly-looking feelings). The Psalms of lament was David’s journal. He was writing directly to God, telling him exactly how he felt, and then he left it to God to act the way he chose to be best. I love this approach. I love that we see this brutal honesty in David’s prayer life, which I’m convinced is one of the main reasons David had the wonderful title a man after God’s own heart. How could an adulterer and a murderer be a man after God’s own heart? He could because he was brutally honest, real and never afraid to face the consequences of his actions. He knew how to ask for forgiveness. He didn’t hide his sin, minimize it or tried to explain it away or blame others. He took responsibility for his own wrongdoings. David laments openly to God. He doesn’t hide a single emotion or thought, but he always comes back to who he knows God to be. He always comes back to the truth, and this is something our generation of young people trying to be honest can learn a lot from.
Too many (young) Christians, including myself often (!), are good at the first part of sharing feelings and thoughts no matter how ugly they look, but we also have to acknowledge the good things in our lives. We have to learn to come back to the giver of life and focus on who he is and point to him as the ultimate solution to our problems and other peoples’ problems.
“I have a really bad day. I am so irritated at this person who keeps hurting me with spiteful comments. I feel like taking matters into my own hands and seek some kind of revenge, but I bring the situation to you, God. I want to punish him and fight back, but I offer him to you. And I acknowledge that you’re much wiser than me and you know what’s best for him and for me”.
I have learned to love journaling, but if you saw many of my entries you probably wouldn’t want to spend much time around me or get to know me more. It’s often not pretty. It’s messy. It’s raw. It’s unedited. It’s real emotions. And I offer it all to God. I offer my good-looking days and my bad-looking days. I offer the days where I judge myself to have failed and the days where I feel like a success. That’s real, honest, transparent, vulnerable relationship. Nothing hidden. I offer it all to God, and I trust that he will continue to work out his life in me. I hope to become better at resting in God and who he is and not be so prone to anger, irritation, loneliness, self-hatred, etc. But I trust that God knows what he is doing. I trust that his timing is perfect. And I trust that as long as I cling to him and continue to stay real with him and obey him and go where he wants me to go everything is going to be okay.
Openness without hope of more and better life is not Christian openness. Honesty that doesn’t acknowledge that I am the way I am today, but I trust that God will change me over time more into who he has called me to be, is not real honesty. Being real is always being real about both the things we like and the things we dislike in our lives not one or the other.
These were a bunch of somewhat scattered thoughts. And I offer them to you, dear blog reader, to make some kind of sense out of if possible 
Torben – who is somewhat nervous about his medical check up this Friday at the Clinic for Oil-Refining Industry of Ukraine…..did they understand that I’m a person and not a car?
