When Knowing Hurts: The Case for Saying No to Knowledge

Friends of ours went to Las Vegas and vowed never to take their kids there. "The images. They're unavoidable. And, once they get in your head, you can't get them out, so we don't want our kids to even see them."

Makes sense.

We worried when our kids switched from a small private school to a public school. What would they be exposed to? What would they see and hear and be asked to do?

We talked with our kids about not being too curious. "You may hear some things that you can guess are inappropriate, but you aren't sure what they mean. Don't ask. If you really want to know, come home and ask us. It may feel embarrassing but we would rather talk to you about embarrassing things and tell you the truth, the accurate truth, than have a friend tell you."

We are all so curious about things that seem to be off limits. "The grass is always greener on the other side of the fence," as they say.

I grew up very curious. Mostly it was a good trait, but it also got me in trouble.

As I watched sitcoms, I was always trying to figure out the double entendres, meant to conceal adult content from us kids who were watching.

My mind became accustomed to deciphering these, and eventually I would read them into comments that weren't meant to be inappropriate at all.

Like when your grandma is talking about salad dressing and says, "I don't want it on the side. I like it on top." And, I want to say, "TMI, Grandma, TMI!"

The Cool Kids

It always seemed like the cool kids had inside jokes and understood sex, drugs, alcohol and the like before the rest of us. So, there was a tendency to think that knowing more about immoral or inappropriate things was what made someone popular.

Unfortunately, that may be true to a degree... even among adults.

The lie behind this is an age-old one. Knowing is better than not knowing. It is better to be exposed to everything, so that we can make an informed choice.

It takes so many different forms, it would be impossible to list them all. Someone is tempted to watch a PG, PG-13, R, or X rated movie.

The old motto, "Try it, you'll like it" whether it be alcohol, cigarettes, marijuana, or other drugs. Whatever is out of reach is desirable.

I say it is age-old because it sounds like Adam and Eve, doesn't it? As the story goes, God tells them to enjoy the fruit of any tree in the garden except one, the "Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil".

Why would it be knowledge that is off limits? Don't we equate "more knowledge" and "better"?

The Truth

Paul shows us the underlying truth in Romans 1-2

The Gospel is unfolding, being revealed. It is alive and penetrating. It brings life and healing and hope and peace and joy.

The Gospel, the good news of Jesus' life and His death and the open door that we have to be with God, is revealed when people, like you and I, allow God to love others through us. (1:17)

Our lives become a window through which others can see God at work in all of our lives.

If we shut down. If we become closed to God. If we allow bitterness, sinfulness, or judgment to overshadow our lives. If we stop the Gospel from doing what it will always do, reveal itself, then we are fighting against God Himself.

Paul talks about suppressing the truth, suppressing the Gospel, suppressing Christ by our wickedness, our sinfulness. (1:18)

All those things that seem so enlightened, so compelling, so desirous, so eye-opening, that increased knowledge but was sinful has become a barrier and has actually led to the truth being suppressed.

It sounds contradictory.

More knowledge, in this case, suppresses the truth.

Romans 1:21-22 - for though they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their senseless minds were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools.

I love the way that is translated, "Claiming to be wise, they became fools."

Isn't that what we all do at times. We get so tied up in wanting... needing to know so that we can be wise, only to realize that we have become the fool.

Information doesn't make us wise. Only obedience to Christ brings wisdom. And, obedience to Christ leads away from some knowledge. Not all knowledge. But definitely some knowledge.

Following God's will for our lives will not stop us from enjoying the things of this world. It will allow us to enjoy life more fully.

Do we really believe that? Sometimes, I do, but often I don't.

The lie is so compelling. I continue to believe that the more I know the better off I am. I justify it by thinking that I am limited by what I don't know and can always choose to ignore something I do know.

But in reality, some images, some experiences, some knowledge you can't easily shake. It sticks even when you don't want to. How do you un-see or un-feel or un-do something? You can't.

Obedience to Christ is revealing and experiencing sin suppresses the truth.

Our identity is in Christ, formed through obedience to Christ, and not formed by gaining knowledge of things that hinder and hurt us.

When Church is an Unsafe Place: An Open Invitation to Our Home Church

Churches can too often become a place to hide. We know that something is wrong in our lives. We know that we desperately need something, something real, something worthwhile, purpose, vision, hope, help. We think we may need God. But, we know we don't want people snooping around in our business. We want God not gossip, not pain.

So, we go to church and we hide, hoping that we can find God or God can find us (however that works) in time before our stuff that we want to hide comes out and messes everything up.

The homosexual man hides his feelings because he is afraid that he will be judged and condemned. He assumes that people there would reject him because of the way they talk about homosexuals and homosexuality in their Bible Study groups, sermons, and prayer requests.

The same can be said for the teen girl who dresses in black and wears dark make-up. She hides too. And, the single mom who can't seem to keep her kids quiet during church. And, the parents with 7 kids who are judged for not stopping after 4. Actually, too often, we all feel judged, and it stinks.

There is such a huge gap between what we see in church and what we see in Christ. In church, we see people judging others (and us) and in Scripture we see Christ forgiving and extending grace.

         Then Jesus stood up again and said to the woman, “Where are your accusers? Didn’t even one of them condemn you?”

         “No, Lord,” she said.

          And Jesus said, “Neither do I. Go and sin no more.” (John 8:10-11)

What an amazing picture of God's grace! But, even here, those who prefer judgment will say, "Yeah, but Jesus told her she had to stop sinning. (So-and-so) hasn't left their sin, they are celebrating it."

But for the rest of us, we not only read about Christ's forgiveness, His love, His grace, we feel it.

We feel the peace that is left when His Spirit cleanses us. We feel the relief of being honest, being vulnerable and spiritually naked before God and then having Him cover our nakedness with His grace.

When we see these inconsistencies between our faith community and our relationship with God, we might ask a typical question of faith development, “Who am I apart from being a member of this community?” or "Can I be Christian and not be a part of a church?"

It is crucial for us to ask this type of question as part of our ongoing journey to discover our true identity.

It may sound like I am advocating leaving your church behind and becoming a "solo Christian" (Someone who loves Jesus but hates the church. Someone who says they follow Jesus apart from any faith community). But I am not.

The fear is that we will leave the church, so some discourage this kind of thinking. And, inadvertently, promote hiding. Instead of facing the truth, we learn to hide our doubts, hide our fears, and ignore the Holy Spirit's urging to be honest.

And, there are lots of people hiding in churches.

Don't be one of them! Please. There is so much more.

Meaning-makers

James Fowler, a groundbreaking author and researcher in the field of faith development, wrote that, "from the beginning of our lives we are faced with the challenge of finding or composing some kind of order, unity and coherence in the force fields of our lives.”^[1]

He noticed that we use our imaginations. We make up a satisfying worldview to explain what we see all around us, to make connections and find commonalities.

We experience people and cultures, beliefs and concepts. We also have our own feelings and experiences, relationships and insights. And, the more we take it all in, the more compelled we feel to create a comprehensive image to explain them.

We want to know, "How can I make sense of it all?"

When our belief that we need to be a part of a church clashes with our realization that the church is not always a nice place, we need to use our imaginations to test out some new theories.

The Problem with Church

In our churches and faith communities, we find people who are mean, people with bad tempers, people who worry, people who lie, people who are manipulative, and every other kind of people.

The place to start when faced with sinfulness in the church is with the question I mentioned before, "Can I be a Christian and not be a part of a church?"

When you have taken the time to face your own fear, doubts, and sin, the answer will be "Absolutely!"

But, don't stop there and walk away from the church.

Realizing that we don't need a church in order to be a Christian, we need to ask why God gave us churches, faith communities, in the first place.

What's the use?

Churches were meant to be a community of people (not a building) that cares for one another. Whether you are in a church of 25 or a church of 25,000, if that is not happening, then something is broken.

As Christians, we have a high calling, to make disciples of all nations. We desire to bring the kingdom of God to earth. That is joyful work for sure, but it can be difficult and exhausting.

We need others who share our calling and our love for God. We need to encourage one another and support one another. We need each other.

If you knew your dog needed a bath, would you keep bringing him to groomer who had a beautiful bath tub, wonderful smelling soap, and great prices, but had no water?

No.

So why do you go to a church that has a pretty building, friendly people, comfortable pews, great music, and whatever else makes you feel good about it, but has no love? Without love it is impossible to please God. They will know that we are Christ's followers by our love.

Go to a church that is a community, people who have learned to depend upon one another.

Our solution and your solution

As a family, we have chosen to create a new faith community.

We are pursuing our faith through relationships.

As an individual, I alone am responsible for my actions, my thoughts, my words, and my feelings.

As a member of our faith community, I am fully engaged in the lives of those in my community. I am responsible to love and respect and encourage and pray for and bear the burdens of those in the community.

Our home church is small. It is relational. It is open and welcoming to others. It is just right for us right now.

We invite others to join us in worship, in prayer, in love, in meals and in life. We invite them into our home and there we share life and love and faith with them. We share ourselves and invite them to share as much of themselves as they would like.

We strive to get to know and accept people where they are. That means that we expect the two year old to act like a two year old and the new believer to have questions and the pregnant woman to be uncomfortable and the 11 year old boy to be antsy. And, we expect everyone to show love and to need love.

It is messy because it is filled with real people living their real lives. (Our life together is not marked by smooth musical transitions.)

It is holy.

It is filled with love and acceptance, with grace.

That’s our solution. What’s yours?

As I mentioned in the beginning, your solution could be to be a solo Christian. But that is not a solution, that is more hiding. Instead of hiding in the back pew, it is hiding in your living room.

Dig deeper, find out why you want to hide, and then find a faith community that will love you as you are and walk with you in the next steps of your spiritual journey.

If you are part of a church because you feel like you have no choice, you will keep hiding, hiding your faults, hiding your sins, hiding your doubts, hiding your opinions out of fear that others will discover that you don't really belong.

But, when you have found your identity in Christ, then you will be free to be yourself in your faith community. When you don't have to be in church to be a Christian, you can choose to be in church, fully honest and open able to give and receive love and grace.


Only after you can stop hiding can you receive all that God has for you and give all that you are to those around you. Then you can ask those other, secondary questions:

"Is this the right place for me? Have I found a community where I can be myself, where my participation in the community doesn’t require me to hide who I really am?"

Your Invitation

You are welcome to join our home church. We would love to share our lives with you. Really. I would love for you to experience the hope and peace, love and grace that we share.

But that option may not be desirable to some and doesn’t help those of you who are reading this in Germany.

Don’t settle for anything less than true community centered in Christ, in His love and His grace.

You may discover that you are in the right church already. Or, you may choose to start a new faith community like we did. Or, you may find a different community that you believe will be right for you. Or, maybe you can begin to change the one you are in.

Even when we have been hurt by people in a faith community, now is the time to forgive, to trust again, and be honest. Face your fear and find a group of people who will love and accept you for who you are and walk with you as you travel on in your journey with Christ.

Our personal identity in Christ will be the strength upon which we can build Christian community with others.

True Christian community is life-giving, encouraging, supportive, and challenging to our faith. Don't settle for anything else.

Join a faith community that knows you and won't allow you to act like a Christian without being one.

---

1 James W. Fowler, Stages of Faith: The Psychology of Human Development (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1995), 24.

Why Pray?

Why Pray? God already knows what He's going to do.

Why Pray? God already knows what we need or want.

Why Pray? It doesn't really change anything.

Why Pray? Why Pray? Why Pray? I have been asked this question by so many people. And, their arguments are logically compelling. Their emotion is honest and often heart-breaking.

One influential woman in my life, Carol Nauta, struggled with this before her death. She heard a pastor friend of mine share a personal story about his own life. He showed graphic pictures of his minivan and explained how he and his family had survived a terrible accident. "Praise God!"

Carol's concern was, "Would he still be praising God if they hadn't all walked away from that accident?" If not, her feeling was that the, "Praise God", wasn't genuine.

She wondered aloud with me. "Why pray? What good does it really do? We just have to trust God that He'll do what is best."

So, for Carol, who lost her life in a tragic accident and heard us singing, "Blessed Be Your Name", at her funeral, I guess this is my best reply to your question.

Let me begin with the three questions I posed earlier. Each one exposes a different lie we tend to believe about prayer.

1 - Why Pray? God already knows what He's going to do.

This is true. Some have a picture of God waiting around until it is time to act. Possibly waiting until we pray in order to decide what to do. The Bible doesn't describe God this way nor is it how we experience Him in our daily lives.
 
God is constantly at work all around us, and we miss most of it. So, the response of healthy spirituality is not trying to convince God to act. He is acting. The act of prayer is not to motivate God. God is fully motivated.

Our hope is to discover what He is doing. Prayer opens us up to see what God is doing all around us and to understand His will. Prayer is not about telling God what to do. It is about perceiving what God is doing, what we have missed in the midst of our own business or our own busyness.

2 - Why Pray? God already knows what we need or want.

This is true. Some have this picture of God wanting to hear about our fickle desires and longings and ever-changing moods as if our prayers are the tabloids of His life. He can't wait to get the juicy details of our love lives, who we are fighting with, and what's the latest gossip on our friends. They think that God somehow benefits from us pouring all of this out to Him in prayer.

The Bible describes God differently though. Many times when people cry out to God, they feel that he is not listening, not caring about the agony that they are going through. That is not to say that their feelings are accurate, but rather just the opposite.

How you feel during prayer is much less important than we have been led to believe. Our spiritual and emotional health depends on us knowing what we are feeling and being able to express it appropriately. That is true enough. But, whether we feel like God is listening doesn't change the reality that He is listening.

Often, it takes our time of prayer to pour out our hearts to God before we realize what we want and need and the difference between the two. Then, in prayer, in the presence of God, God can begin to reveal to us why we think we want certain things or need certain things. He can reveal to us the deeper truths, the greater needs that so easily elude us in the busyness of our lives. In these times of silence and solitude, of focused prayer, of listening prayer, our needs and wants can be transformed to fit with reality, with the truth.

3 - Why Pray? It doesn't really change anything.

This is the least true of these statements. It is true in that it doesn't usually change outcomes (except when God does something truly miraculous and sometimes He does!). It is false, however, when we consider how prayer changes us and changes our relationship with God.

Prayer directly changes us. It allows us to step back from our lives, to recognize that God is in control and not us, and to see what God is doing all around us.

As we are changed through prayer, our relationship with God is changed. We recognize God's work in our lives, our role in His plans, and we are more willing to be obedient to His Spirit when He leads in some way. Sometimes, prayer can cause us to change our habits, choices and words based on our new understanding of reality. This influences all of our other relationships.

God's action may dictate our own action in response. Or, we may be called to participate in His action and so partner with Him in His work. Or, we may just be able to marvel at His work and give Him praise.

Why pray?

First, in prayer, we learn to recognize God's activity in our lives and acknowledge His will. Then, in prayer, we surrender our own needs and wants and allow Him to change them, to align them with His will. And, finally, prayer changes us, changes our relationship with God and changes our relationship to those around us.

That is all very reasonable. For those of us who want a more personal answer to "Why pray?" here it is. Prayer is when the best part of me, the part that is longing to draw closer to God, to live for God, to love God with all that I am is nourished and refreshed and feels alive and free. It is in prayer that I feel at peace with myself and all of the circumstances in my life. It is through prayer that I experience the presence of God in my life and am reminded that all is well with my soul simply because God is present. His presence changes me and therefore changes everything.

The task of the Christian is "to become aware of what God is doing so that I can respond to it and participate and take delight in it," (p.4, The Contemplative Pastor by Eugene H. Peterson.)

It is how we learn to love the Lord with all of our heart, all of our soul, all of our strength, and all of our mind and to love our neighbor as ourselves.

Take some time to pray, just be you in the presence of God, and be ready for God to transform you so that you become who you were created to be a little more each moment.

Our Educational System is Broken: A Parent's Perspective

[I am not into taking sides in a debate. Debates are usually just excuses to put others down so we can feel better about ourselves. So, I am not taking sides, pointing fingers or laying blame. It is not the teachers or unions or administrators or parents or students that are to blame. It is the system itself that is broken.]

Our educational system is designed to prepare people to make a living not a life.

We are more concerned with our children’s bank accounts than we are concerned with our children.

As my brother contemplated pursuing art as a major in college, I remember my dad telling him, “There are a lot of starving artists out there. Good ones.” My brother is a computer guy who pursues art in many forms whenever he can.

I love this photo. I think he said he used a lamp and some paper towels, maybe a paper bag.

 

My uncle never went to watch his son skateboard in any of his competitions or even just for fun. “There’s no future in skateboarding.” He later became a pro-skateboarder. He now works for Nike, I think.

How many of us have been told similar things about the passions of our hearts? How many of us have told our children similar things?

Insiders could tell you more about the inner workings of the system and what is wrong from that perspective. They could tell you about wasted hours of teaching to tests, the ridiculous nature of tenure and the insanity of bureaucrats setting teaching standards. But, as a parent here are my top ten reasons our educational system is broken:

1 – The system has become self-generating. The only people who leave school prepared for their jobs are teachers. Every other occupation without exception needs on-the-job training after they graduate. Why? Because, school is on-the-job training for teachers. How about finding what a student is passionate about and setting him up with a mentor. Finding someone who loves what they do to teach our children about their area of expertise. Yes! Absolutely!

2 – The system is designed for those who can sit still for long periods of time (not for children). Get them up, moving, doing, creating, exploring.

3 – Success in school is determined by your ability to get a good grade. What isn’t measured is how much the student has learned, how much they understand and can grasp a subject? This is incredibly hard to measure with a percentile. So, our grading system adds to the dysfunction.

Instead of trying to learn, our most alert students spend the first few weeks of school figuring out how much or how little work is required. Do they really need to read the text or just take good notes in class? Is homework checked? What are the tests like? They even pass this info on to future classes.

 4 – Teachers aren’t given the freedom to teach what they love. They teach what the system requires. They teach to a test. They teach what they taught last year. So few teachers are able to fit what they love into the system. As a parent, I would rather my children have great teachers who taught what they love, than to learn a specific set of knowledge that fits within a system. Great teachers inspire a love for learning and a love for life. The system does not. It cannot.

5 – Math and English are more important than anything else all the way up through high school. Really? Is that the most important thing we can teach our children?

6 – Creativity is trained out of our children. It is rare for a child to graduate high school or college with as much creativity as he had when he began kindergarten. That’s wrong.

7 – The system thrives on comparison and competition. Students are not seen as individuals, encouraged to flourish in their way and excel at what they were created to be. They are not rewarded for how much they have grown and flourished. They are compared to a standard, a set of scores on a series of standardized tests. “My son is in the 94 percentile.” “I was valedictorian.” “I got 1600 on my SAT’s.” What does that have to do with education? And, yet, it has become synonymous with it.

8 – The system minimizes the importance of experiencing life. My friend commented, “Why do children get taught to color trees brown? They are gray. Look at a tree. It’s gray. Why can’t they show them a tree and just have them draw it?” A silly example, maybe, but why not have art class in the woods. The system teaches us to simplify things and try to capture them rather than to appreciate things in all of their complexity and multi-sensory richness. Students are taught to memorize facts and then to think that they understand. Can you grasp World War II, or MacBeth, or Impressionism. In college, they debunk many things learned in high school only to replace it with “deeper understanding” held with greater arrogance. It is more of the same. We are not able to grasp the depth of the beauty and majesty of God or any of His creation. We can only wonder. Let’s teach our kids to wonder.

9 - The measure of success for administrators is the % of students attending college after high school. We used to have dumb kids at our school. There was no stigma to it. We just seemed to appreciate the fact that we weren’t all the same. The “dumb” kids weren’t really dumb. They just didn’t get good grades in the “system” that was school.

One of those kids would be the first to get a car and would know how to take it apart and put it back together again. One guy rebuilt an old Porsche and sold it. We were all in awe. He made $5000 on it, if my memory serves me. That was big money for a high school kid. No one expected him to go to college and get an MA in Education and become the next school teacher. He pursued another career and demonstrated his intelligence in other ways.

That is just one example of the system being self-perpetuating. Success in school for students, teachers, and administrators all lies with how well the system works to perpetuate itself. Maybe it is time we rethought the entire system. Maybe homeschooling, hackschooling, and other forms of alternative education are the answer. Or maybe we haven’t even begun to see it yet. But, there must be another way.

10 –Finally, relationships. The best education usually happens in relationships. There is interplay between student and teacher. Both are learning and growing. Both challenge the way the other thinks. Mutual respect grows. Great teachers know their students and engage them in areas that interest the students as well as areas that interest the teacher. Content can be taught in a variety of ways, but the relational aspect of teaching is foundational. When teachers are required to teach to the test or overly bound to a curriculum, the relationship withers on the vine. I believe most teachers love their students and desire to do their best for them. But, the system prevents this more than encourages it.

So, what now? Do we just take our chances with our children and experiment on them with all kinds of educational models hoping we get something right? I don’t know. But, can we get a worse result than we are getting now. Math and English are the highest priority in this system, and we continue to lag behind in these areas. The system doesn’t even work at promoting its own priorities. It certainly isn’t promoting the welfare of our children or our society. Something must change, within or without the system.

“If you’re not prepared to be wrong, you’ll never come up with anything original.” – Sir Ken Robinson

(Another quote by Sir Ken Robinson, “If a man speaks his mind in a forest and no woman hears him, is he still wrong?” Now that's funny.)

How I Failed a Personality Test: 13 Truths that Change Everything

About 8 years ago, I took my first class for my doctorate and I took a personality test. It was unlike any test I have ever taken. It asked me deep questions like,  "Do you like nature magazines?" In school, I could do well on tests without studying and this one, I was instantly sure that studying wouldn't have helped one bit.

After the week of classes, I sat down with the professor to discuss the evaluation of my test. He said that I failed.

"I failed?

How do you fail a personality test?"

He told me that I either intentionally lied while answering the questions or I had no idea who I was or what I liked.

I knew I hadn't lied. But, I didn't like the sound of that other option.

"What does that mean?"

I had been living by a set of rules. I had been trying to be "Good" and had answered every question on that test trying to find the right answer.

Actually, in every situation in life, I was trying to give the right answer.

Then, something he taught us in the class started to make sense.

"Only when we place ourselves quietly and deliberately in front of God are the secret places in our hearts opened and the real motives of our behavior laid bare. Under this test, we discover the many ways in which we deceive ourselves: The pride, with which we imagine ourselves smarter, better looking, and more moral than others; the self-righteous motives, with which we think ourselves acting out of selfless love; the self-flattery, with which we convince ourselves that we actively live the Christian faith we hear about on Sunday mornings. In these ways and many others, we construct images of ourselves to cover up the reality we do not want to see."[1]

I had been living a lie.

And so the inward journey to find the truth began. I had to get alone with God. I was desperate to be with him. From this same article, I read,

"To be in God's presence alone is to be confronted by his gaze with nothing to hide behind."

"Yes, we will be hurt when we put ourselves alone into God's presence, but the hurt will be healed by mercy."

So, I pressed on.

Here are 13 truths that brought freedom:[2]

1 - You are responsible for all you do, think, feel and want (and don't do, don't think, don't feel and don't want.) Think about it... how often do we try to blame someone else for what we do, think, feel or want. It's a waste of energy. We can't even blame God or Satan. It's all on us. Accept responsibility. It is the only way forward, the only way to be free.

 

2 - You are responsible for the consequences of all your thoughts, feelings and actions. This follows. If I am responsible for what I do, think, feel and want, then I am responsible for however things shake out from there. It may feel like a lot of burden to bear, but it's true, so we either live in the truth or we pretend and live a lie.

3 - You do not have to offer excuses. Once we accept responsibility, we have no excuses. "Simply let your 'Yes' be 'Yes,' and your 'No,' 'No'; anything beyond this comes from the evil one." - Matthew 5:37. What more can say? I did it. I own it. Yes, that was me. And, if necessary, "I'm sorry. Please forgive me."

4 - You are not responsible for the how others think, feel or act. They are responsible for themselves. If the first two feel like an added burden, this one is the payback. Some of us carry the weight of the world on our shoulders feeling responsible for other peoples' choices, actions and feelings. We think that if we had just done a little more or said a little less or... then this person wouldn't (fill in the blank). Realizing that we are not responsible for others thoughts, feelings or actions is a complete game changer. We are free!

5 - You have the right to change your mind. We sometimes feel like we have to stick with our decisions even when we realize that we made a bad choice. We are afraid to go back and try something different, so we lock ourselves in. Being responsible for our choices doesn't mean we can't go back and try to change them. It means the opposite. We are free to choose something different now.

6 - You have the right to make mistakes. We don't have to stop our lives, frozen in indecision, afraid to make a mistake. If we freeze up, that is a choice too, and it is guaranteed to be a mistake. We need to take a risk. We will make mistakes, and we will be responsibility for the consequences.

7 - You have the right to be wrong. Similarly, don't be afraid to be wrong. And, if someone tries to rub it in your face, just accept responsibility and move on. "You're right. I was wrong." Usually, you don't even have to apologize. It's just a fact of life.

8 - You have the right to say, "I don't know." Because sometimes it's true.

9 - When others do good things for you, you don't have to "give yourself up" to pay them back. Just because someone did you a favor, whether it's lending you a pencil or giving you a car, you don't owe them anything but love and respect (what we owe all people). We don't have to do something we don't want to do in order to pay someone back.

10 - You don't have to "give yourself up" to be loved by others. Same principle but in another situation. If we want to be loved by someone who is not loving us, whether a parent or significant other or anyone else, it is tempting to do and say things that aren't true to who we are. We want to morph ourselves into a mold that we think they will be more likely to love. This never ends well. Whether it is overworking to please a boss, entering into an abusive relationship, or working extra hard to be who our parents want us to be, we wind up losing our true selves.

11 - You have the right to be illogical in decision making. This was a tough one for me. We don't have to explain our reasons behind our thoughts, actions or feelings. There is nothing innately better about a logical argument than an illogical one. I want to... is enough. Anyone who cannot accept your decision is struggling to accept you.

12 - You have the right to say, "I don't understand." How else will we learn unless we are willing to admit that we don't understand? In relationships, being able to understand another person helps us to love them more. If you want to know someone better, these words are indispensable. If you just want to prove them wrong, these words can be reduced to the beginning of an argument.

13 - You have the right to say, "I don't care." It's almost never true. We care about almost everything. But, to the extent that other things are more important and this one doesn't rank up there as a major priority. Sometimes we just don't want to expend the energy to decide what we want. And, so it is fine to sometimes say, "I just don't care," because my love for you is more important than this.

As we can learn to live out these truths in our lives, we will grow to love and respect ourselves and others more each day. Grace and forgiveness follow love and respect. And, soon, we realize that we are on a journey and we can either share the road or try to beat everyone else, we can't do both. 

I hope one of these truths will help you move toward freedom today. Which one(s) do you find hard to believe? What would you add to this list?

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[1] Clifford Williams, “When Mercy Hurts: Receiving God’s grace means facing the truth about ourselves,” Christianity Today (Feb. 1989): 17.

[2] Frank Green, “How to Be the Person You Want to Be: Learning to deal with some of life’s vital issues,” Wake Forest Baptist Church, Wake Forest, NC: 6.