The precarious business of telling the truth – Ezekiel 2:1-3:15, Preview

Do you tell the truth? Of course you do…or do you? Are there times when you might fudge a bit on the truth?

I suspect that all of us struggle with lying here and there, but for the most part we are committed to telling the truth. I ask the question, though, because there are times when telling the truth is very tricky.

For example, what do you do when a friend or spouse asks, “How do I look?” and you think their outfit doesn’t look so great? Worse, what do you do when a spouse or friend says, “Do you think I’ve gained weight?” You know they have gained weight, but red flags are flying, saying, “LIE! LIE! LIE! Get yourself out of this trap. Tell them they don’t look like they’ve gained even an ounce.” Harder still can be those situations in life when a person in your life is behaving badly, and you know need to talk with them, but you are afraid of alienating them or offending them. Should you speak truth to them? What if you lose them? What if they stop talking to you?

It’s complicated, emotional and we can clam up, while the person continues their bad behavior. These are difficult situations, and while we might not tell outright lies in those scenarios, we can avoid the truth. Does that resonate with you? What do we do about it? As we continue studying Ezekiel, the next passage describes God’s commissioning of Ezekiel to that very role, the role of a professional truth-teller. There will be much we can learn from God’s commissioning of Ezekiel that will help us as we consider the oftentimes difficult task of truth-telling.

Open a Bible to Ezekiel 2:1-3:15, read it and on June 28’s post, we begin discussing how it applies to our lives.