Living in the Truth

2.13.23

If we want to live in the truth about yourself and God and the world, then there are two practices that will help you to do this. Although the truth about ourselves often rises in our minds, we mostly don’t pay any attention to it among all the other thoughts we have. Also, we have been trained not to acknowledge the truth about ourselves. There are two ways to anchor the truth in us so that we can deal with it, rather than just ignoring it: journaling and speaking the truth aloud either to yourself or to another are the ways that make the truth real to us and able to be dealt with.

I recommend the method called “morning pages” in Julie Cameron’s book, The Artist’s Way, for journaling.[1] Each day you are to simply record in a journal what you are thinking and feeling that day. Just write it all down without editing it. Day after day, month after month, you will accumulate a real picture of your inner self and what issues it is dealing with. This discipline will bring you face to face with each issue which you can then take to the Lord in prayer, asking for His healing, even transformation, for anything that stands between you and God in you. Over time you will find that there are many layers to some issues, so that they will arise again and again, each time at a deeper level in you.

And what is healed in you? The norms that the culture has imposed on us, the lack of self-love and forgiveness, our attitudes of judgment, prejudice, fear and anger, and so much more.

I have also found that saying the truth aloud to myself, or to another person, or even to a small group where confidentiality is primary, brings about the acknowledgement of the truth about me in the way that journaling does. This is a practice, too, done daily or often; it is a great way of facing the truth about where I am today. Issues become concrete in us, just as with the journaling, and when they are concrete, then we can deal with them, again asking God for healing and a new way of being.

As we do these two practices, over time we will find that there is a new lightness in us, a more understanding attitude about ourselves, and a commitment to carry on in the truth about ourselves. With the Lord’s help and our commitment to love God with all of ourselves, we can undergo these changes with faith and hope that we will be able to reside in the truth about ourselves and to rediscover all that God had planned for us when He created us. We can then live out Jesus’s promise that “the truth will set you free (John 8:31-32)!” As we process truth after truth, we will feel ourselves become lighter and lighter, we can even begin to love who we are and forgive ourselves for all that we have said and done that is not love. This is when the fruit of the Spirit in Galatians 5:23-23 begins to grow in us, providing a whole new way of being in this world.

[1] https://juliacameronlive.com/basic-tools/morning-pages/