To Be Honest With You

There is a lot to be said about honesty.  It is a value not always forthcoming but highly appreciated by those who receive it in most given occasions and we are informed that honesty is the best policy.

I’d like to suggest though, that in as much as honesty is a good quality to have, it’s overrated.  That’s right I said it, honesty is overrated.  It’s funny when people go on about being honest especially with that golden phrase ‘to be honest with you’.  It rather suggests that you’ve been dishonest in the past!

A far more endearing quality is to be fervent for the truth and that truth may be of greater importance and even conflict with your honesty.  When we consider honesty it is about the telling of our thoughts, feelings and responses to situations that we confront, but the basis of these is not about truth other than how we truthfully feel, think or respond.  So someone can give their honest opinion that has nothing at all to do with the truth.  Yet because we value the honesty it’s almost as though that is rewarded in itself but the bigger picture isn’t considered – what is true.

Behold, you delight in truth in the inward being, and you teach me wisdom in the secret heart. (Psalms 51:6)

That’s also why you’ll notice God placing a higher value on the search for truth that just living off honesty.  Rather than sit comfortably on our honesty of how we feel, there’s something better to be said about living up to the truth.  Someone honestly didn’t like that person, but the truth demands us to find God’s love in our heart to share with the guy.  The honest expression exposes the condition of the heart, but only the truth can make it right again.

So the phrase ‘in all honesty’ is funny in the sense that it should really say in all of my honesty, whereas the bigger deal is what says the truth.  The truth spoken in love is that which builds those intimate relationships Billy Joel evidently lamented in his songs.  To be honest with you, in this sense, honesty isn’t so much the best policy as the power of truth spoken from the author of all that is true.

For His Name’s Sake

Shalom

dmcd