Facts can be accurate, that doesn’t always make them right…
facts are dispassionate, the truth is compassionate
Facts are said to be “cold and hard”like a prison cell,
the truth, will set you free!
just the facts…to tell the truth!
The biggest difference between facts and the truth I’ve noticed is in how they’re used. I recently heard of a young couple planning to get married,the fact is that at least 50% of marriages result in divorce, especially when the people are under 25yrs old. It takes years to really know what it is that you want out of life or who you really are, people sometimes grow and change a lot in their early twenties. based on these “facts” I would have a hard time being supportive of the idea.
Whats the truth? The truth is that what’s impossible with man IS possible with God, when a husband and wife put God first in their marriage He’ll bless it. a generation ago it wasn’t unusual at all for people to get married at 16 or 17 yr’s old! Those are the ones celebrating their 50th and 60th anniversaries today! Who disregarded the “fact” that at times they were perhaps very unhappy with their spouse in favor of the truth which is that “nobody’s perfect” and that we’ve all done some pretty dumb things! Whose ability to let go of the dead weight of condemnation and remember what it was they loved about this person to begin with carried them over the rough patches.
Have you ever heard the phrase, “speaking the truth in love?’ The term ‘truth in love’ is actually redundant. You can’t have the truth without love. It says in the Bible that God is truth and that God is love. Facts are often used to accuse or discourage someone, or in a condemning manner,are you starting to smell something? who IS the accuser of the brethren? That’s right! our enemy himself, Satan…Whats interesting to me about all of this is that when we use the “facts” to tear someone down we ourselves are also left vulnerable to the same attack! This is an area that I know I’ve screwed up in…why? Because I live in a world of facts, as critical, judgmental and deadly as a heart attack to a person’s Christian walk…So now, it’s only the truth that can set me free, the truth in love!
Telling people that they’re responsible for the results of every choice they’ve made in life may be a fact…but it’s not the truth!
People make some of life’s most important decisions during their teen years at a time when their least qualified to make them! They don’t always have parents or counselors in their lives to help them make good choices. So we heap responsibility or “blame” onto people who are least able to discern truth from fact and then wonder why they resort to lifelong self-destructive behaviors. Based on what I’ve observed being an adult is no magic solution to the problem either, sadly we become even quicker to verbally injure people with our “great truth”.
It’s that sort of thinking that drove me to the edge and had me convinced that I basically had no place among decent folks. And it’s that sort of behavior that I can’t sit by and allow to be used to bludgeon others with.
I just can’t…
Because it’s not the truth!
Seeking The Kingdom 