Honesty

How desperately difficult it is to be honest with oneself. It is much easier to be honest with other people.                      -Edward Frederic Benson  (courtesy of quoteland.com) I am on Day 12 of my reading of The Purpose Driven Life.  One of the sub-points of today's reading is about being honest with God.  The writer instructs us that in order to have a closer relationship with God that we must be honest with him.  This is because our relationship with God is supposed to be like a friendship where we can freely talk to one another.  But how easy is it to be honest to God when we are not always honest with ourselves? Honesty is supposed to be the best policy and all but how often are we really honest with ourselves?  We know that when we are honest with others that sometimes it may be hurtful.  That is why the "little white lie" was created.  Because if it is only a "little white lie" to spare someone's feelings from being hurt than it is ok right?  But maybe we are telling ourselves little white lies to protect us from getting hurt.  In turn this may prevent us from accomplishing our goals and and prevent us from being honest with God.  The truth is, that when we are honest with ourselves it allows us to grow.  Back when I was in law school I felt like I was going to die.  My blood pressure was dangerously high, I was overweight, and my body just felt like I was falling a part.  I had to finally be honest with myself that I needed to change my life.  I made a plea with God to let me get through the rest of law school and then I would do better.  And that's what I did.  Eventually I lost 70 lbs through exercising and by joining Weight Watchers.  My blood pressure is now controlled to the point that even my doctor is amazed at the difference.  The truth is, if I had kept lying about the state that I was in I could have died.  By me being honest with myself I was honest to God.  And I need to be honest with myself that I need to get back on that path, but that is for a future post. I am sure that we all have issues that we push to the side, ignore, and are in denial about.  Why wait any longer?  The time is now to start being honest with ourselves so that we can be honest with God.