Truth: The Ultimate Foundation

Recently, I was at a Bible study where we were discussing the subject of truth. Our coffee cups and Bibles adorned the table’s surface, and our hunger for Biblical knowledge filled the surrounding air. We talked about the nitty gritty of the topic, and how we must seek out every ounce of it, no matter how hidden it may seem to be. Regarding truth, one of those dear friends around the table said this: “In the end, it’s all we’ve got.” That was incredibly powerful. I’ve been thinking about this simple, yet dynamic statement for two weeks, and it gives me full-body chills every time!

The truth is all we’ve got.

Let’s digest that a little bit, shall we?

What do we have if we don’t have truth?

Lies.

We are left with lies, and nothing can stand on them. If you build a life on lies, it falls apart. Lies eventually send everything crumbling into the ground, washed away by wind and rain because they cannot stand true and strong. Lies fail. Lies look really attractive, and always deceive, which is their true nature.

If I send a photo of a plant to a friend and talk about how much I love it, she will probably admire it. I can continue to photograph that plant sitting in the sun and absorbing the golden rays. I can place it in a new pot and tell my friend that the roots outgrew the last one. I can even top it up with fresh soil and post social media photos of my success with this plant. Eventually, my friend, and others that see my photographed story, will probably start to ask me for advice on plants, seeing as I am such an excellent plant caregiver. I can give advice all day long, encouraging people and humbly showing off my plant-y prowess, and helping others to grow in this wonderful hobby. But eventually, my friend may drop by my house with a potted plant in hand as a gift for all of my help with her plants. As she comes into my house, she bends down to admire the plant that she has seen so many photographs of, and as she does…she is greeted with an unexpected surprise. Does a little lizard pop out to scare her? No, it’s far more unexpected than that. She discovers my secret…that plant is made of plastic. Yes, I have been photographing myself watering, re-potting, and bragging about a plastic plant, claiming that it is a living, breathing piece of nature.

Just as a disclaimer, I have never tried to pass off a plastic plant as a real one. But if this story were true, imagine the reaction that my friend might have while looking at that plastic plant. She would feel flooded with all sorts of emotions, ranging from anger to hurt, confusion and betrayal. All the advice that I gave, the success that I boasted about, and the expertise I showed would be revealed as a massive lie. She would probably take the little plant she brought as a gift and walk right back out of my house, knowing that she couldn’t trust me to care for it if the only thing I’d kept “alive” was made of plastic. Not only would my lie be exposed, but our relationship would be forever altered.

See, the truth always comes out. Lies build a story, a facade. But once the grandeur of that façade is revealed, the allure fades. The prestige vanishes.

In the end, the truth is all we’ve got.

What if I had been honest in this story? What if I had sent the original photo and captioned it with a statement such as, “I wish I could keep a real plant alive, but I’ll pretend that this one is real and not plastic?” It would have been funny and my friend and I would have laughed. Eventually, we probably would have learned more about those plants together, and both seen success in that hobby. In this story, I chose lies over truth. Some of the more popular statements about truth that you have probably heard go something like this:

The truth hurts.

The truth will set you free.

Looking at that first one, I think we can all agree that, at times, the truth does hurt. But the truth never injures, it merely debrides. Merriman-Webster’s dictionary defines the word debride as “the usually surgical removal of lacerated, devitalized, or contaminated tissue.” In order for something living to thrive, anything that might bring it harm must be removed, and this removal is painful. It rips, scrapes, and causes bleeding, but once it’s done, the healing process can begin in earnest. So, the truth does hurt, but it does not fatally wound. The truth heals.

In the same way, healing is what sets you free, so those two statements actually go hand in hand. Lies hold us captive, and they are breeding grounds for all kinds of terrible things in our hearts and our lives, so we must allow the Lord to debride any lies we are hanging on to, any lies that we have bought into, and set us free. When we poke around for the truth, we find out what’s real and what’s plastic. We discern the lies that the enemy of our souls has advertised and sold so expertly, and we are left with one thing: the truth.

In the end, the truth is all we’ve got. And the truth will set us free.

"For if you embrace the truth, it will release true freedom in your lives.” John 8:32 TPT