Latest / Shine FM / God on the Go by AllMomDoes - Brave Enough: To Tell the Truth
Transcript
- 0:01Speaker 1: Purposely. Your life, God's purpose. Listen at Purposely.com. I had
- 0:13Speaker 1: everyone's attention. Everybody was gathered around me at school because
- 0:18Speaker 1: I had just let them know about a really dramatic
- 0:21Speaker 1: thing that I said was about to go down, and
- 0:24Speaker 1: everybody wanted to hear about it. And then I told them,
- 0:27Speaker 1: and everybody was, oh, no, oh, that's so sad. I
- 0:30Speaker 1: can't believe it. And I just got to be the
- 0:33Speaker 1: very center of everything for a hot minute. But the
- 0:38Speaker 1: problem was what I told them, it wasn't true. My
- 0:44Speaker 1: name is Julie Liles Carr, and this is God on
- 0:47Speaker 1: the Go, the podcast that goes with you in those
- 0:49Speaker 1: little short moments of time where you wanna have the
- 0:51Speaker 1: conversations that matter the most. We're part of the Purposely
- 0:54Speaker 1: Podcast Network. We've been talking about brave enough, what it
- 0:59Speaker 1: means to be brave enough and all kinds of different
- 1:02Speaker 1: situations that we run into in our lives. And this time,
- 1:06Speaker 1: we're going to be talking about brave enough to tell
- 1:10Speaker 1: the truth. So back to that moment when I was
- 1:14Speaker 1: back in elementary school, what I had told everyone was
- 1:18Speaker 1: that I thought that we might move, that my family
- 1:22Speaker 1: might move. Now, here's what's funny about that. Eventually, my
- 1:26Speaker 1: family did move once I got into high school, and
- 1:28Speaker 1: it was so hard. But in the moment, at that time, no,
- 1:32Speaker 1: there was no conversation about my family moving. But because
- 1:36Speaker 1: we had moved into this community two or three years before,
- 1:40Speaker 1: and I noticed that kids who were moving in and
- 1:43Speaker 1: were new in the classroom were getting a lot of attention, well,
- 1:46Speaker 1: I guess somewhere in my little brain, I thought, I'd
- 1:49Speaker 1: like to have some of that attention. And so I
- 1:51Speaker 1: announced that I was also moving. Unfortunately, that was not
- 1:55Speaker 1: the truth. I mean, fortunately, we weren't moving, but unfortunately,
- 2:00Speaker 1: I told a lie to get this kind of attention.
- 2:03Speaker 1: On average, the average person tells one to two lies
- 2:07Speaker 1: a day. That is a lot. And so when you
- 2:12Speaker 1: are not brave enough to tell the truth on the daily,
- 2:15Speaker 1: think about how many lies that adds up to. But
- 2:19Speaker 1: here's the other part of that that's really interesting. The
- 2:22Speaker 1: same studies also say that people who say, nope, I'm
- 2:25Speaker 1: going to be honest. I'm going to be honest no
- 2:27Speaker 1: matter what. they actually have lower stress levels over time.
- 2:32Speaker 1: Because let's face it, when you're not brave enough to
- 2:34Speaker 1: tell the truth, you are creating a lot of stress.
- 2:38Speaker 1: You got to keep up with all these stories and
- 2:40Speaker 1: all this stuff that you've made up. I can tell
- 2:42Speaker 1: you for sure that lie I told about moving, it
- 2:45Speaker 1: created a lot of stress. Because what do you think happened?
- 2:48Speaker 1: My friend's moms called my mom to say, we're so
- 2:52Speaker 1: sorry to hear that you're moving away. Oh, we've really
- 2:54Speaker 1: loved you guys living in the community. And my mom said, what?
- 2:58Speaker 1: are you talking about? And it created some stress and
- 3:02Speaker 1: it also got me grounded for a while too. So
- 3:04Speaker 1: I can see that people who say, you know what,
- 3:07Speaker 1: I'm going to be brave enough to be honest. Well,
- 3:10Speaker 1: those people are probably going to feel a lot less
- 3:13Speaker 1: stress over time than those who are trying to maintain
- 3:16Speaker 1: and remember all the lies that they've told, even when
- 3:19Speaker 1: it's just one or two lies a day. We see
- 3:22Speaker 1: a couple of examples in Scripture about what it means
- 3:26Speaker 1: to be honest and the costs of not being honest.
- 3:30Speaker 1: Zechariah 8, verse 16 says, Speak the truth to each
- 3:34Speaker 1: other and render true and sound judgment in your courts.
- 3:37Speaker 1: The importance of simply speaking truth. There were two people
- 3:42Speaker 1: in the early days of the church in the New Testament,
- 3:45Speaker 1: and their names were Ananias and Sapphira. Now, they had
- 3:47Speaker 1: a piece of property that they were going to sell,
- 3:51Speaker 1: And they were going to give money from the sale
- 3:53Speaker 1: of that property to the church. That's an awesome thing, right?
- 3:58Speaker 1: They sell the property. And what they do is they
- 4:01Speaker 1: give a portion of that sale of that money to
- 4:05Speaker 1: the church, which also would have been fine. What was
- 4:09Speaker 1: not fine is that they lied and said that they
- 4:12Speaker 1: gave all the money to the church. And they were
- 4:17Speaker 1: found out for it. And it cost them dearly. It
- 4:20Speaker 1: cost them their lives. That's how important the truth is,
- 4:25Speaker 1: that when we don't tell the truth, there's a cost involved. Now,
- 4:29Speaker 1: here's another kind of story with a different kind of outcome.
- 4:33Speaker 1: Do you remember Joseph in the Old Testament? He's the
- 4:36Speaker 1: guy who had a lot of brothers. He's the guy
- 4:38Speaker 1: who had the coat of many colors. And he ended
- 4:41Speaker 1: up in a situation with a boss where the boss's
- 4:45Speaker 1: wife lied about Joseph. She said that he did something
- 4:49Speaker 1: that he did not do. Joseph told the truth and said,
- 4:53Speaker 1: I didn't do it. But everyone else believed the boss's wife,
- 4:56Speaker 1: and Joseph ended up in prison for it. But God
- 4:59Speaker 1: wasn't done with Joseph's story yet. Joseph was a truthful person.
- 5:05Speaker 1: And over time, Joseph's reputation as someone you could depend on,
- 5:09Speaker 1: someone who was true, someone who was honest, well, it
- 5:12Speaker 1: became known. And ultimately, he became one of the highest
- 5:16Speaker 1: officials in the court of Pharaoh in Egypt. Ultimately, because
- 5:21Speaker 1: Joseph was brave enough to tell the truth, even when
- 5:25Speaker 1: it would cost him, God rewarded him for that. So
- 5:30Speaker 1: I think this is an important question. Have this little
- 5:32Speaker 1: discussion question with your mom and dad, with whoever is listening.
- 5:36Speaker 1: Has there been a time when you told the truth
- 5:39Speaker 1: when a lie would have been easier? What happened? And
- 5:44Speaker 1: would you do it again? What did God show you
- 5:46Speaker 1: about being brave enough to tell the truth? A big
- 5:51Speaker 1: shout out and thank you to our sponsor, George Fox University.
- 5:54Speaker 1: You can learn more about George Fox University at georgefox.edu
- 5:59Speaker 1: and their unique approach to helping your student find the
- 6:03Speaker 1: right path for their future. And I'll see you next
- 6:06Speaker 1: time on God on the Go.