The Real Truth

I was beside myself, and more than a little ticked off.  As a young pastor, I had just discovered that a man in my congregation was going around to other church members and telling outright lies about me!  (Imagine that! 😊)  I sat at my office desk for most of the morning doing a slow burn before finally realizing I needed to talk to someone about this.  I called David.  David was an older and much wiser pastor who had a penchant for befriending and mentoring younger pastors like me.  “David, something is going on here at my church and I really need to talk.”

 An hour later, I was sitting across the table from David at a nearby restaurant and we were ordering lunch. As the waiter disappeared with our order in hand, I wasted no time launching into my “opening argument”. I began to outline every detail of this man’s offense against me, and I went on and on and….well, you get the point.  David patiently listened to me.  But as I began to wind down with my “closing argument” his attentiveness was suddenly joined by a silly grin on his face that was downright aggravating.  I told him “David I don’t know how you can find anything amusing about this.  This man is going around TELLING UNTRUTHS ABOUT ME!! 

 Till the day I die, I will never forget what he said to me in response.  With the grin on his face becoming full-fledged, he said “I don’t know Grant….I was just thinking how relieved you must be!”   I said “RELIEVED? ARE YOU KIDDING ME?!!!  What is there to be relieved about?”  (boy did I walk right into it - never saw it coming!)  He said:  “I’m just thinking that you must be so relieved that he doesn’t know the REAL truth about you….and that’s what he’s going around telling people! “

Hello? Can you say “gobsmacked?”  For a moment I sat there in stunned silence as the full gravity and truth of what he had said registered.  David meanwhile made no attempt to conceal the hilarity of the matter and before I knew it, he and I both were laughing hysterically.  “Touche’!” I said.

 It was a good and needed reminder at that moment that I am not entirely (or at all) as good and unassailable as I sometimes think that I am.  I am a Christian not because I am good, but because I, in fact, desperately need the mercy and forgiveness Jesus championed for me on the cross. 

 That lunch with David reminds me that a true friend is someone who, without judgement or harshness, is willing to tell us the real truth about ourselves. I am thankful for friends like David. 

 Of course God does this better than anyone, and strangely enough, it is His Law, written in His Word and in our hearts, that proves to be that “ultimate friend”.  Not quite a year ago I penned a poem entitled “The Prosecutor” that gives expression to my growing love for the Law of God, especially as I experience it as my “friend” - though I continually fall way short of its demands.

                       "The Prosecutor"

Your Law, O Lord, is absolute perfection.

But given by grace for my ultimate protection??

While nothing escapes its exacting detection,

Including my every and "slight" defection??

Yes, Your Law protects when in full compliance, 

But sorely condemns my every defiance!

Relentlessly charging my wayward license.

So that disheartened, I stand, in guilty silence.

But though your law does accuse and condemn,

Strangely now also comes to befriend.

For by its accusation, I now comprehend

My need for a savior, my plight to attend.

While menacingly pointing to all my offense,

It points further beyond to my only defense:

The One who acquits, at His own expense,

Suffered my sentence as justice dispensed.

For without pain of penalty as the Law instructs us,

Forgiveness would be a miscarriage of justice.

But sinless, Christ came to trade places with'us,

As He died to forgive, without trace of injustice.

So with justice upheld and Your Law satisfied,

Righteousness reigns, with Christ glorified!

And I, a sinner, by faith justified,

Love Your Law who served as my guide. 

- Grant Hoofnagle, November 2024