Can You Handle the Truth?

Truth.

The word just sucks. 

My earliest memory of this horrible word occurred when I was about 10 years old. It went like this… “Shane, tell the truth, did you really make Chase (our golden retriever) attack and bite your little sister?” Now I know what you are thinking… OMG you trained a golden retriever to attack and bite someone… That is AWESOME! I agree that it was very epic but my parents were not impressed. They wanted truth. All I know about the word Truth is that it gets people in trouble.

Take for instance, Pro Christians, who quote Jesus and say “The truth will set you free.” It’s a solid point but one that is not realistic with the modern Christian culture. Before opening up to one of these professional Christians beware. You are probably better off standing in front of a firing squad yelling out “your momma is so fat” jokes. 

  

Life would be a lot more fun if we just replaced the word “truth” with “pretend”.  Let’s be honest folks. That is all people really want anyway. 

"You can’t handle the truth!" Seriously… you can't. If people knew the truth about many of their pastors and spiritual leaders they might just slap themselves silly. I'm not saying their leaders are doing scandalous things, but I am saying that our current Christian culture does not make room for people to be truthful. If you admit to anyone anything more than "I am kind of struggling right now" red flags get thrown up and you better get ready because you are about to be attacked.

This is how it goes down in Christendom…  So Shane you are struggling right now? Yes Mr. Jesus face, I didn't st-st--udder. Hmm… Well Shane, you should probably be reading the Bible and seeking the Lord’s face about this.  Thanks, Mr. Jesus face, but to tell you the truth, I really just need to talk to someone about things and I don't even know what the heck seeking the Lord’s face means. On second thought, Mr. Jesus, I am doing very well and my quiet times have been amazing. (It should be noted that as you are answering their questions the prosecutor is thinking of what your "secret sin" is and how they may confront you on this in the future.)

My precious daughter did not feel well a few weeks ago on her birthday. She turned 5 and we were going to take her to Disney Land to see the princesses and ride some rides (I honestly was more excited about Disney Land than she was … quit judging me). She walks in to our room that morning and says she doesn't feel good. I just couldn't believe what she was telling me and I went off. The nerve of this little girl I thought… I started yelling at her for not eating her pink Flintstone vitamins regularly and for spending way to much time watching “Dora the Explorer”. I then grounded her to her room until she could quote the book of James and she had repented of her evil ways.

Okay, That's not exactly how it happened. If it happened like that I do believe Nicole would have attempted to karate chop me, which would have made me bust out my ninja moves. Rylee was sick, though, and guess what? We encouraged her, loved on her, and Nicole and I both would have traded places with her in a heart beat. Why? Simple. We have a genuine relationship with her and we care about her. We didn't try to interrogate her. We loved her.

Dear Christian,

Shut your face. If you don't really care or show people genuine love, you are wasting your time and making God look like a fool. Maybe you should establish a friendship with people before you tell them 7 reasons why they need to repent.

We can never be free until we can be ourselves. I knew I couldn't be honest with people because I knew that many in my inner circle secretly wanted me to fail. People love power and when they feel that they are above you they cherish it and don't want to let it go. It’s pretty sick when you think about it.

Tell people what they want to hear. No more. No less. In fact less is always more. To avoid boring deep "spiritual" conversations/arguments that don't really matter I would insert random bits of awesomeness, like the fact that 78% of all statistics are made up on the spot.

I was always scared of what people would think if they got to know the real me. I felt I couldn't be honest. There was no room for error. In fact this affected me so much that when I moved away to Huntington Beach, California I made up my mind that I wouldn't let anyone that I met know anything about my past.

My reasoning was simple and to me it made sense. Clearly people will reject you and think down on you if they know you have issues. There was no way after losing all my friends in Texas that I was going to risk being vulnerable in front of people again. I decided that I wasn't going to tell anyone in my new town that I was ever married, had a kid, and that I was ever a youth pastor.

This decision of mine was wrong and I don't recommend it. I felt like a fraud and a fake, but I justified it because I had tons of friends and I wasn't burdened by the dreaded "can we talk about your spiritual life" phone calls. Here is some free advice. If you haven’t spoken to someone in months and you know “they have walked off the path” don’t start your second question with God jargon. As being the person “off the path” I can tell you from experience that it just makes people mad and shutdown. We already know before talking to you where the direction of the conversation is going (see Christian MLMer’s from I’m Back!! post). Just simmer down there, Bible Bob and Holy Holly. If you really care about us “off the path” people, gain some level of a relationship, respect, and trust before you pull out the gospel tract.

TIP OF THE WEEK: Say for instance, you do what I did and not really give a whole lot of details about your life while you are trying to find some pretty girls to hang out with.  Make sure to give them the funny, cool stuff that makes you look amazing, but not amazing enough for the nice ladies to Google you. Google knows everything about everything. When people find out things about you from the Internet that they didn’t know… like you were married, have a kid, and you are from Louisiana, which means you probably can’t read and somehow you become a little less amazing. What made it even worse was the fact that Google had that I was currently married at the time. I wasn't married then, but trying to get someone to go against Google results is like trying to make a golden retriever attack and bite small children. You can do it, but somebody is going to get hurt. Fail.

I miss judged people and learned the hard way. My new friends in HB don’t know Jesus from Gandhi and they don’t pretend to. Once the information got out about me they were still there. They have showed me more love and honesty than I have ever found in a church. You would think that the people who accept you and love you for who you are would be the people who profess Jesus.  It’s a little backwards don’t you think.

Dear Bible Bob and Holy Holly,

I realize that it is easier and a lot more fun to judge people. In fact there is nothing in this world that unites people more than bashing one of your mutual friends. All I am saying is, be gentle, be kind, be considerate, and above all love. Or you could just keep being judgmental, distant, and angry in the name of “tough” love. It’s your choice.