One of the challenges of our time is the difficulty to find people who can tell you the truth. Often, it is not that people around you do not know what is right, although that is the case sometimes, rather they are sensitive to whom you have made them believe you are.
Some people have created the atmosphere around them that would make it difficult for anybody to tell them the truth. You are their enemy if you do not support their course. To criticize their plans and actions is to set yourself at variance with them. They believe that their friends should support them in whatever they do. This is a twisted view of friendship.
This self-centered malady is human. Human beings are naturally wired to be self-defensive; deflective, and self-exonerating. That is why when we have messed up we look for someone else to blame. It is difficult for the human nature to admit own faults, errors, especially publicly, and constructively address it. This is the reason that one of the marks of maturity is the ability to admit own faults, errors, misdeeds and address them constructively.
The main reason friends and relatives shy away from telling you the truth about you is that they do not want to offend you. The strong desire to receive approval and maintain the company of relatives and friends often makes people handicapped to tell the truth.
We also tend to drawn the voice within that keeps telling us we need to change. Many people over-indulge in social activities just for the purpose of silencing the inner voice. They hate to hear that voice within that tells them how deceptive, how wicked, how inhumane they are, and keep telling them to change.
So, systematically we shut off the voice of reason within as well as checks and balances from friends, relatives and neighbors, and that sets us up on a precipice that it would take a Divine intervention to escape from.
Prov.29:1 “If you keep being stubborn after many warnings, you will suddenly discover you have gone too far.” (Contemporary English Bible)
After many rebukes, the stiff-necked man will be broken incurably, without any warning. (ISV).
When we are set on that dangerous precipice, destruction is inevitable. It may be delayed, but it would definitely come.
Note the following:
- If you have a person who always tells you, “Johnny stop that; don’t do that rubbish, it is utterly wrong….” Value that person; he or she is the gift of God to you.
- If you have a conscience that would always prick you when you do wrong; it disturbs you when everyone else is praising you; thank God for such a conscience. It is the voice of God within you, do not silence it.
- If you have a friend who can look you straight into the eyes and tell you, “…this idea of yours is wrong …. your action was stupid, apologize…” cherish him or her; s/he is a true friend.
What if there were no warning signs for drivers? There would have been so many more accidents; deaths and destruction.
What if a person ignores the signal giving by his own body? You are having pains in certain areas of your body and ignore it. Or, you are having constant chest pain and you think is nothing. Or, this migraine never stops, but you always take a pain killer and move on to your daily tasks. Is that not disaster purchased, awaiting delivery?
Similarly, do not silence that voice. Do not create such an atmosphere that would make people be afraid to telling you the truth about you. if you do, you have purchased a disaster that is awaiting delivery. You know that a man’s destruction is predetermined and certain when he can no longer listen to the voice of correction.
The Scripture is full of warning signals, instructions and guidance. Do not throw them away. Do not wrestle with them in your hearts. Those warnings are meant to keep you safe.
Our prayer should be. “Lord, do not let that voice cease.” Do not take away from me the voice of correction, rebuke, admonition in truth and indictment when I am wrong.
May God grant you the heart that listens so that, like Isaiah, you can say, “The Sovereign LORD has given me his words of wisdom, so that I know how to comfort the weary. Morning by morning he wakens me and opens my understanding to his will. The Sovereign LORD has spoken to me, and I have listened. I have not rebelled or turned away.” (Isaiah 50:4-5).