"Do the right thing because it is the right thing to do."
That's not an easy thing to do, or something we naturally want to do. But if we would be faithful subjects of King Jesus, we must—and praise Him that He imparts the desire and strength to do it if we ask and believe! I know this to be true personally.
In the adult Sabbath school quarterly, there was this statement in last week's lesson: "Everything that Christians do should be as transparent as the sunlight. Truth is of God; deception, in every one of its myriad forms, is of satan.... It is not a light or an easy thing to speak the exact truth."
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Some time ago, a friend confided in me. Some of the things they told me were very saddening and alarming to me, especially in light of what I believe about the great controversy between God and the devil for men's souls. At that point in time, my relationship with Jesus was not as strong as it is now. I didn't understand about going to Him alone with our troubles. Besides this, talking has always been one of my greatest faults. As a child, I was one of those kids that you were better off not telling secrets to. Even though I got a little better grip on it as I grew older, the problem was by no means gone. The burdening nature of the information shared with me, combined with my natural tendency to gab, made it difficult for me to keep silent. I ended up sharing the bulk of the information with my mother—but my friend knew nothing about this.
One day we were talking about our mothers via text. "It's a good thing you're close to your mom," he said. A few minutes later, he asked, "You don't tell her what I tell you right?"
At first, I avoided the question, hoping he would leave it alone. That wasn't to be. "Well do you?" he demanded.
"Not generally. Generally I just tell her about school and your Bible questions," I finally replied. I said a little more, but then we changed the subject. I tried to justify what I said—after all, that is what I generally did.
It's not exactly a lie, I reasoned, but I still felt uneasy. Even so, I was scared to tell him the truth. My friend isn't exactly the most gentle, and I didn't want to face his wrath.
Instead, I determined from that day that I would cease to talk about my friends' personal issues—even with my family. Thankfully, the Lord was merciful and has helped me to progress in this matter; nevertheless, my roundabout deception would often come back to me. I was perplexed and afraid. I didn't know for certain what I had to do—was I just worrying about nothing? Was I being too fanatical? And even if I wasn't, what would he do if I told? Would he reject Jesus because of my failure?
Then came the day I saw the above quote about being transparent. The more I read it, the more I knew what I had to do. Since I'd written my friend many letters over the years, and because I didn't want to face a verbal onslaught via telephone, I opted to do that.
I quoted the statement in it, and explained my folly. I also explained that through Christ, I was seeking to follow the counsel of Proverbs 11: 13: "A talebearer revealeth secrets: but he that is of a faithful spirit concealeth the matter." I told him that while I hadn't perfected this yet, the Lord was helping me. I ended by saying how freeing it felt to follow the verse, and I asked him to pray that I would overcome my bad habit.
I prayed much as I wrote and sent it, hoping that God would be glorified somehow. I prayed that despite my shortcomings, he would see there
was something to Christianity, at least because I was seeking to live up to what I knew by righting wrongs. I was hoping and praying he would see that even confession isn't something that man wants to do on his own, that there must be Someone Who gave me the desire and the power to do it. I found out a few days afterward that he had not received the letter. He had moved, and he didn't know whether he had a forwarding address. He declined to give me the new one for whatever reason, so I wrote him an E-mail. Between the time I sent the letter and wrote the E-mail, I'd remembered something else I had been deceptive about, so I tried to clear that up too. I texted him a message to read it when he got the chance.
He did. "I thought Christians were supposed to be faithful," he wrote.
"They are. I have failed and I know that," I answered.
He went on to say that he would forgive me in time. I was happy, and praised God that it went much smoother than I expected. After some more pleasant exchanges, I shut the computer down to go for devotions. When I turned it on a few minutes later to refresh my memory on something, I unfortunately noticed a text that revealed my friend had misunderstood me again in regards to the second issue. I decided I would take care of it later, and went on looking for what I wanted. Not finding it, I returned to my devotions.
Later I attempted to clarify what I meant with the second issue. Long story short, last year I had repeatedly brought up memories of something that went on in the past. I had done this because he didn't remember it at all, and it hurt my pride. It hurt that he remembered other similar things with other people, but not when it came to
me. Simply put, it was an
I issue. During that period, I was also struggling with morose and gloomy thoughts that left me feeling like no one appreciated me, so I suppose I took more offense to his forgetfulness than I would have otherwise. Somewhat understandably, he had taken my bringing up the past to mean something
plausible, but
entirely different from what I had actually meant. While I had refuted this claim, I hadn't been truthful when I explained why I mentioned the memories again. Perhaps I was too embarrassed at the thought of his knowing just how big of an ego I had. Whatever the case, I told him the truth about that in the E-mail too, along with the other problem.
It seemed so simple to me. An admission of deception and pride. He didn't understand, and again started going on about what
he claimed I was saying. I tried to set the record straight once more; but he persisted in thinking this way, and began to belittle me. As I answered each text, I had to stop and check the anger that welled up inside. Through Christ's grace, I didn't retaliate to the insults, but just kept trying to help him see that I was apologizing over an attempt to hide my hurt ego, and nothing else. I finally told him very plainly that what he thought was
not the case, not
at all. He understood that well enough, but I fear that my intent for apologizing is still lost on him. Looking back over the E-mail, I see that I didn't word things clearly, so I suppose I can't fault him. Perhaps it was the same with my texts. He has told me before that I get "too advanced" (or something like that) in my speech.
I forget sometimes that people who don't share my faith won't see things in the same vein that I do. While I'm sad that he can't seem to simply understand and forgive me, I am happy that, through Christ, I did the right thing because it's the right thing to do; I'm happy that my conscience is clear. I don't know what my friend will do, whether he will let this have a part in making or breaking his decision for Jesus in the end; but I do know that God uses all things for our good. If the good here is simply a clean conscience and further warning to always be tight-lipped yet truthful, that's enough for me. I hope this inspires you to do right for its own sake as well—even if it is a longwinded post!
Blessings,
Jean
