Truth Will Set You Free

So they said to him, “Who are you?” Jesus said to them, “Just what I have been telling you from the beginning. I have much to say about you and much to judge, but he who sent me is true, and I declare to the world what I have heard from him.” They did not understand that he had been speaking to them about the Father. So Jesus said to them, “When you have lifted up the Son of Man, then you will know that I am he, and that I do nothing on my own authority, but speak just as the Father taught me. And he who sent me is with me. He has not left me alone, for I always do the things that are pleasing to him.” As he was saying these things, many believed in him.
So Jesus said to the Jews who had believed him, “If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”
John 8:25-32The

We took a walk along the ocean last night. Although it is September, it felt like the middle of the summer as it was very warm and muggy. The clouds obscured most of the star but the nearly full moon was brilliant and reaching through. It is normal to want the summer to last forever and yet it does not. We all know our lives are changing rapidly and things cannot remain the same. Those who want to live with denial and delusion can get away with it for a while. But the only way to live and thrive is to embrace the truth, no matter how hard it might be and to dive in head first, trusting God to lead the way.

Jesus is still struggling to offer a loving and closer relationship with God to people who want to remain in control. They want to cling to the security of their management techniques, their lists and their rules. It has worked in the past for them. But God has arrived, in the flesh, to offer them a new way, a new reality, and an intimacy with God. They are terrified. And yes, we are all terrified when faced with the truth and faced with the waning of the familiar and the secure. God promises to be more in times like these. God promises to go before us and surround us as we embrace the truth and let go of our controls. We cannot control the world and God is ready and willing to find us safe passage and renew our weary souls.

Today, I ask God to help me embrace the truth, and to take God into my heart. The changes are mammoth that we face, but God is bigger and kinder than all that we face. May we see our losses as an invitation to deeper love, our failure as more tender relationship, and our need as being met before we can cry our. May we see the freedom road, the way ahead that God has promised as we face the truth and open wide our hearts to God.