Speaking Truth into One Another

Written by Cameron Conant

This article is courtesy of Christian Single.

Pornography saved my life. The night my wife confronted me about my past experiences with porn made me admit something very dark and ugly about myself. The outer shell that I wore – so attractive and nice and clean – had to come off. And the day my wife filed for divorce made me discard that image forever. There was no more hiding. I was emotionally naked.

The experience taught me something important about the Christian life, something important about truth. It taught me that real growth happens when we’re honest with God and honest with one another.

It’s weird to write that because at one time, I thought that being exposed was the worst thing that could have happened. But I now call it “the best worst thing” that could have happened. That’s because despite the pain and embarrassment, much good came of it all. Before, I had been dying a slow death, one in which I would sit in front of the computer for hours, hoping a gnawing pain would go away, hoping the demons inside would disappear, hoping my problems would evaporate. They didn’t.

I’ve since found healing, though I’m not perfect. But now I tell people how I’m doing even if how I’m doing isn’t all that pretty. My friend Caroline recently told me, “You’re transparent, not in a self-depreciating way but in a way that’s honest about your strengths and weaknesses, which is why people feel comfortable with you.” If that’s true, it’s only been in the past couple of years that I’ve grown into this new way of living.

Rethinking Friendship
People like Caroline have helped me develop transparency. I don’t know how it happened, but one day I woke up and realized that I had all these friends who were wonderfully honest people even in their messiness. On the outside they’re attractive and put together, but on the inside they’re not always neat and tidy. They’re still in process, and they’re open about it.

An out-of-town friend was visiting last year and had dinner with me and a few friends. Afterward he commented, “It’s really made me rethink community and what it means to be open with people.”

I think I know what my friend was getting at. He’s a Christian, is very involved in his church, goes out of his way to help people in need, and has plenty of friends. But something’s missing.

I wonder if other Christians are also experiencing this same missing-ness, just like I was, just like my friend is. I wonder if most Christians are dealing with junk they feel they can’t expose. I wonder if most Christians get by on friendships that lack depth, rarely moving beyond surface-level talk. And I wonder why these kinds of relationship are so prevalent in the church. As Christians we’re called to move into relationships that speak truth into one another’s lives, but often we stop short at shallow. Why do we live like this?

I think one reason is fear – fear of rejection, fear of being exposed as a fraud. This seems to be especially true in the church, where we sometimes get the message that we’ll be accepted only if we behave in certain ways.

John Burke, pastor of Gateway Church in Austin, Texas, and author of No Perfect People Allowed, agrees. He believes that the reason most people find honesty and authenticity so difficult is ultimately because of our brokenness, our sin.

“What our sin does is it separates us from God. It causes us to think we can attain life without God,” Burke says. “Sin destroys relationship, and relationship is the core of spirituality.”

Burke says that restoration comes through confessing our sins, just as the Bible says we should, and then going about the sometimes messy process of seeking God together.

“If you found a Rembrandt painting covered in mud, you wouldn’t treat it like mud. That’s what we do with people who are messy,” he explains. “You wouldn’t treat that painting like mud, and you probably wouldn’t try to clean it yourself. You’d bring it to a master who could restore it.”

The Messy Truth
My friend Sally is a youth pastor in a church outside of Nashville, Tenn. People have a tendency to open up to her because she is kind and calm and reflective. But for every person who has opened up to Sally, there are probably many others who want to but never have.
 
“I think it’s innately in us to want to know and be known, to love and be loved,” Sally recently said to me. “And because of this, we want to be the sort of people that we think the other person wants us to be – because then we’ll be accepted.”

So how do we become people who can experience true honesty with God and with those around us? How do we become people who can both speak truth to and receive truth from others? Burke says, in part, it’s by realizing that we are all in process.

“We all really want to come to church as we are with the hope we can be more, with the hope we can experience and live in God’s grace,” he says.

Deep down, we also want to experience it with others. We want friends who will help us become more. This is what Jesus did. He was always able to offer both grace and truth, one of the best examples being the story of the woman caught in adultery. You may know the story, how these guys are getting ready to stone this woman until Jesus said, “The one without sin among you should be the first to throw a stone at her” (John 8:7). Everyone walks away, at which point Jesus turns to the woman and says, “Go, and from now on do not sin any more.” He first protects her and then, having gained her trust, points her in the right direction.

We should all hope to surround ourselves with people who offer both truth and grace. Of course that was Jesus, who’s perfect, and we’re just … us. But with humility, prayer, courage, and honesty, I believe that we too can become the sort of people we’d like to be around – people of grace and truth.

“Our group of friends, we’re so messed up,” Caroline recently said, smiling. “But at the end of the day, I think we love the Lord, and because of that, we’ve created this open environment.”

Of course, the early church was also a little messy: Paul confronting Peter, people struck down dead because they tried to cheat God, the debate about the role of women and Jews, discussions about Gentiles and the Old Testament law. (Read the Book of Acts – it’s fascinating.) “It was messy and insane, and yet the Lord added to their number daily,” Caroline says, wide-eyed.

Caroline’s theory is that people are attracted to truth, even if it’s messy. I think she’s on to something. Maybe one of the reasons many people look at the church, scratch their heads, and turn away is that it looks too fake – too clean. But Jesus went to unclean places and to unclean people: lepers, prostitutes, the uneducated, the homeless, cheaters … generally messy people. He spread His truth everywhere, especially to those honest enough to know they needed it. But for those who weren’t very messy, or more appropriately, refused to admit that they were, Jesus had little patience.

I never want to revel in my sin. I never want to play in the mud simply because I can, but neither do I ever want to stop admitting my messiness and weakness and frailty. Most importantly, never do I want to stop inviting Jesus to walk with me – and speak truth into my life – in the midst of it all. m

Cameron Conant is author of “With or Without You” and “The Year I Got Everything I Wanted.” A former newspaper reporter, he contributes to several magazines and is currently working on his third book, tentatively titled “Unlikely Pilgrimage”

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