Proverbs 24:16
The godly may trip seven times, but they will get up again. But one disaster is enough to overthrow the wicked.
Godly people don’t wallow in defeat, self-pity, self-loathing…lots of self-stuff. They get back up after every time they are knocked down.
That’s what we do.
Refuse to give in to the constant temptation to beat yourself up. That only comes from pride and self-love of your own self-centered demand for perfection.
Stoppit!
And a way to actually refuse this is to converse with God candidly about it, holding nothing back. He wants to hear your cares, your pains, and take them. He desires to give you peace and heal your heart. But you need to be vulnerable with YHWH and actually allow Him in to the recesses of your heart. Let Him in to every room, not just the ones you’ve already cleaned up. He wants to help you clean up the messy ones.
If you have a messed up shoulder, you don’t go to the doctor’s office only to complain to the receptionist about how you keep doing stupid things to further intensify the pain of your injury, then go get back in your car and leave!
Why do we love complaining, wallowing, and not seek healing?
John 18:33-38
What is truth?
Pilate attempts to objectify truth, but Jesus does not allow it by His brilliant answers to questions with not mere objective answers, but rather invitations to new depths of understanding.
Truth is found within the person of God.
When people ask deep life questions, look to see why they are asking. Help them to see for themselves what they are really seeking. Lead them to the deeper truth of God Himself, never just a simple, objective answer.
God is truth. And truth sets you free.
Answers do not set you free, truth does. Perhaps that’s what we’re talking about here–the difference between truth and answers. Pilate’s questioning culminated in Jesus testifying, “Actually, I was born and came into the world to testify to the truth. All who love the truth recognize that what I say is true.”
People who are seeking answers to their questions typically are not seeking truth. It’s more of a trivia game. If you were told by someone who figured it out, the objective fact of why bad things happen to good people, would it truly change your heart and inspire you to give your every moment to Christ? Though it would be a really cool day (finally hearing the answer to this perennially asked question) it likely would not turn your heart around on account of the information alone. Knowing objective facts about someone is far different than knowing someone. Hearing about a person through someone else is not even close to the same as sitting with that person face to face. Knowing answers is an astronomical difference from relational experience–knowing truth.
But to know the truth is to be set free. Jesus showed us that God is truth. And to know something or someone, you must be in relationship with it or him or her. So “You shall know the truth. And the truth shall set you free” is to be in relationship of the deepest nature with God through Jesus. It is then, and probably only then, that you no longer need answers to all your questions, for you are now residing in a place of such deep trust, that many questions fade away into unimportantness, filed away in the category of “Don’t really need to know in order to know God.”
What is truth?
Truth is a Person.
Get to know the Truth.
Then you’ll have all the answers you want.