Most of us know what honesty is. It is being a person who tells and lives in truth. If we look at the opposite side, we should find out what telling the truth does not mean. We can damage the lives of those we love if we are brutally honest with our words.
According to Gary Chapman in Love as a Way of Life, telling the truth does not mean:
*Telling everything that we have knowledge of. We don’t want to damage a reputation by telling everything we know to everyone we know. You probably know someone like that! You have to be careful when you are around them, because you know whatever private thing you might tell them will be public knowledge.
*Verbalizing all of your emotions. It can be detrimental to speak forth everything you feel, all the time. Feelings and emotions need a filter, because feeling are fickle, they can change quickly.
*Making an excuse to be unloving. Allowing your emotions to control your behavior and expressing them under the guise of honesty stimulates additional negative emotions in the other person’s mind.
*Telling secrets for personal gain. Don’t sacrifice truth on the altar of success or even just a feeling of being one up on another person, or having the last word.
*Jeopardizing justice. Men and women of integrity will not tell everything when to do so would be detriment to the cause of justice. (An example of this would be the families who hid Jewish citizens to protect them from the Nazis.)
When we live truthfully, we are being authentic. We are being people of integrity. That is who we are called to be. When we live in truth, we are free to love others for who they really are. As we live honestly we can reveal who we really are. What a wonderful way to live. Freely loving others, and letting others know the real us.
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