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Recently I had the pleasure of addressing this fun filled topic with Pastor Jeff Denton of Waterbrook Bible Fellowship in Wylie, Texas. I am posting a question per day from that discussion. Here is question number 3..

 

PASTOR JEFF: 

 

Don’t hypocrites think they’re fooling everyone, yet their behavior gives away who they really are?

DAVE:

Absolutely. It is not just a spiritual phenomenon.

Al Gore has made an amazing personal comeback with his global warming documentary. I will not debate the claims of his film here. Instead I want to focus on a very inconvenient truth that all of us battle. We are natural born hypocrites. All of us. Gore outlined a list of sacrifices that we should all make to help the environment. Use a clothesline instead of the dryer. Drive a hybrid. Cut back on the thermostat and home energy consumption.

But Al Gore’s personal lifestyle hypocrisy severely damaged his message.  The Chattanoogan newspaper reports that Gore’s mansion, located in the posh Belle Meade area of Nashville, consumes more electricity every month than the average American household uses in an entire year. So how does Gore justify this apparent case of talk not matching walk? Mr.Gore purchases “carbon offsets” to make his consumption “carbon neutral”. By paying to plant trees or contributing to solar or wind powered energy it “offsets” the personal excessive usage.

The spiritual application is real and sobering. A messenger without commitment to the message loses effectiveness. Christians produce our own version of “carbon offsets”. We talk about the life changing power of Jesus and don’t demonstrate it. We talk about God’s love and don’t manifest that love. So we invest in “carnal offsets” like serving on every church committee or saying yes to every church request so that others can see how committed we are to the church.

“Look at how hard I am working.”
“I am doing so much more than that person.”

And we spectacularly miss the point of following Jesus.

Researcher George Barna has a fascinating theory about hypocrisy and my generation.

“Twenty five years ago, Baby Boomers wanted nothing to do with institutional religion and generally felt that Christians were hypocrites. Today, Boomers are half of the born again population. You have to wonder what caused such a massive turnaround. It was not simply because they had children and wanted their offspring to have religious training.

“After pouring over numerous national studies we have conducted since the early Eighties, I believe that the issue is the way in which we have proposed Christianity to the Boomer generation. At heart, Boomers are consumers. The way we presented Christ to most Boomers struck a resonant chord with them from that mindset. We told them all they had to do was say a prayer admitting they made some mistakes, they’re sorry and they want to be forgiven. Boomers weighed the downside – which really amounted to nothing more than a one-time admission of imperfection and weakness in return for permanent peace with God – and figured it was a no-brainer, a can’t-lose transaction. The consequence has been millions of Boomers who said the prayer, asked for forgiveness and went on with their life, with virtually nothing changed.

“Sadly,” the researcher continued, “they misunderstand the heart of the matter. They saw it as a deal in which they could exploit God and get what they wanted without giving up anything of consequence. But very few American Christians have experienced a sense of spiritual brokenness that compelled them to beg God for His mercy and acceptance through the love of Christ. We have a nation of ‘Christians’ who took the best offer, but relatively few who were so humiliated and hopeless before a holy and omnipotent God that they cried out for undeserved compassion. That helps to explain why in practical terms it’s hard to tell the difference between those who have beliefs that characterize them as born again and those who don’t; the difference between the two groups is based on semantics more than a desperate plea for grace that triggered an intentional effort to live a transformed life.”

I am afraid that is scarily insightful. As followers of Christ we have not demonstrated that grace that transforms lives. We have not displayed the humility and brokenness that makes faith real. There may be a silver lining here. The charge of hypocrisy offers a great opportunity to confess our own failings and explain grace. Admitting mistakes will be disarming and may well open a dialogue of grace and healing.  

Tim Keller writes that “Christians, surprisingly to most people, should not be surprised and might even expect to find nonbelievers who are much nicer, kinder, wiser, and better than they are. How can that be? Christianity is unique in that its followers are not accepted by God because of their moral performance, wisdom, or virtue, but because of Christ’s work on their behalf. Almost every other religion assumes that one’s spiritual status depends on your religious attainments and discipline. This naturally leads adherents to feel superior to those who don’t believe and behave as they do. The Christian gospel, in any case, should not have that effect.”

Our lack of explaining the distinctives of Christianity leads to part of the hypocrite conundrum. We don’t explain that our faith is not about our righteousness but all about the righteousness of Christ that is imputed to us by faith. Because we have made it about us and our behavior we have opened the door for the church to be charged with hypocrisy.

To be continued…
 

Recently I had the pleasure of addressing this fun filled topic with Pastor Jeff Denton of Waterbrook Bible Fellowship in Wylie, Texas. I am posting a question per day from that discussion. Here is part 2.

 

Pastor Jeff:

 

There are several reactions we can have to hypocrisy.

–          Just accept it.  “It’s part of every Christian’s life. We’re all hypocrites about something.”

–          Use it as an excuse for not being part of God’s family.   (Like today’s question: “Why would I hang out with those people?”   “Those people are fakes and I don’t want to be with fake people.”)

–          Rationalize it or Lower our standards.

 

To be honest with you – all these replies simply give credence to the accusation by someone outside the church —  “Isn’t the church filled with hypocrites? I don’t want to be with them, so I don’t want Christ.”

 

We’ll address the issue of talking about hypocrisy with non-Christians in a moment. Dave, let’s talk first about hypocrisy among Christians and address it within the context of the church. I immediately think of the example of Ananias and Sapphira (Acts 5:1-11).

 

1 But there was a certain man named Ananias who, with his wife, Sapphira, sold some property. 2 He brought part of the money to the apostles, claiming it was the full amount. With his wife’s consent, he kept the rest. 3 Then Peter said, “Ananias, why have you let Satan fill your heart? You lied to the Holy Spirit, and you kept some of the money for yourself. 4 The property was yours to sell or not sell, as you wished. And after selling it, the money was also yours to give away. How could you do a thing like this? You weren’t lying to us but to God!”

 

They keep some of the profit from the sale of some property, but claim to have given the entire amount of the sale price. They’re each struck dead for this deception, this hypocrisy of trying to look better than they are – generous, instead of greedy.

 

Can you give us some other examples of hypocrites in scripture?

 

Hypocrite Laureate Dave:

 

I think the example of Ananias and Sapphira is a great one because Peter is the one who accused them. By the way, that is a great passage to read right before you take the offering. We see that Peter was discerning and confronted the hypocritical actions of Ananias and Sapphira. But we fast forward in God’s Word and we find Peter being accused of hypocrisy by Paul in the 2^nd chapter of Galatians.

When Peter came to Antioch, I opposed him to his face, because he was clearly in the wrong. Before certain men came from James, he used to eat with the Gentiles. But when they arrived, he began to draw back and separate himself from the Gentiles because he was afraid of those who belonged to the circumcision group. The other Jews joined him in his hypocrisy, so that by their hypocrisy even Barnabas was led astray.

When I saw that they were not acting in line with the truth of the gospel, I said to Peter in front of them all, “You are a Jew, yet you live like a Gentile and not like a Jew. How is it, then, that you force Gentiles to follow Jewish customs?

“We who are Jews by birth and not ‘Gentile sinners’ ¹⁶know that a man is not justified by observing the law, but by faith in Jesus Christ. So we, too, have put our faith in Christ Jesus that we may be justified by faith in Christ and not by observing the law, because by observing the law no one will be justified.   

Fascinating. So Peter revealed hypocrisy in one passage and stands accused in another. And then he writes about hypocrisy in 1^st Peter…chapter 2. It is a hypocrisy hat trick.

1 So get rid of all evil behavior. Be done with all deceit, hypocrisy, jealousy, and all unkind speech.

I think that is a message to all of us. We are all capable of discerning hypocrites, capable of being a hypocrite and hopefully capable of seeing hypocrisy as a bad behavior. James talks a lot about actions that many would define as hypocrisy.

 

In Chapter 2 of James…

For example, suppose someone comes into your meeting dressed in fancy clothes and expensive jewelry, and another comes in who is poor and dressed in dirty clothes. If you give special attention and a good seat to the rich person, but you say to the poor one, “You can stand over there, or else sit on the floor”—well, doesn’t this discrimination show that your judgments are guided by evil motives?

 

Later in the chapter he says this…

 

Suppose you see a brother or sister who has no food or clothing, and you say, “Good-bye and have a good day; stay warm and eat well”—but then you don’t give that person any food or clothing. What good does that do?

 

James is full of annoying truths that challenge believers to live their faith and not set yourself up to be hypocritical.

Last Sunday I participated in a series at my church, Waterbrook Bible Fellowship, that has been dealing with tough questions. Pastor Jeff Denton has been moderating discussions on difficult issues that every thoughtful believer must address. These topics have already been addressed and you can visit the website to watch or listen to the discussions.

“Isn’t believing Jesus is the only way arrogant?”
“Does science contradict Christianity?”
“Isn’t faith a cop-out?”

My assignment was a duck and cover topic.

“Isn’t the church full of hypocrites?”

My “bad Christian” response to that is simple. “Sure…but go ahead and join us. We can squeeze in one more.”

Inexplicably, Pastor Jeff wanted me to flesh out the topic a bit more. Over the next few days I am going to post Pastor Jeff’s questions to me and my answers. Some of this is bonus material because we ran out of time on Sunday. Here is how I was introduced on Sunday.

Pastor Jeff: When I think of “hypocrite”, I think of Dave Burchett.

Hmmmm. Nice rep I have on my home court, huh? He went on to explain that I came to mind because of the intro to my first book. Nice recovery Jeff.

Pastor Jeff: Why did I think of Dave?  The opening paragraph to his book, When Bad Christians Happen to Good People.
It reads: “I must begin with some words of disclosure. I am a hypocrite. I can be arrogant and selfish. I have been known to stretch, conceal, or slightly massage the truth. I am sometimes inconsiderate and insecure. I struggle with lust and impure thoughts. My ego often rages out of control, and I battle foolish pride. I can be lazy and foolhardy with my time. I get angry, petty, and ill tempered. I am sarcastic and cynical.        
I am a Christian.

After that considerable lowering of the expectation bar we began the Q&A portion.

JEFF:

When I think of a hypocrite, what comes to mind for me is someone who lives by the axiom, “Do as I say, not as I do.” What is a hypocrite?

DAVE:

Abraham Lincoln once defined a hypocrite as the man who murdered both his parents…and then pleaded for mercy on the grounds that he was an orphan. 

The word hypocrite comes from the Greek word hyprokrites, meaning one who plays a part, an actor. Probably no word is more destructively used in describing Christians than hypocrite.

The book UnChurched is full of hard truths. One of the primary conclusions from the survey groups they interviewed is that Christians are perceived as hypocrites and this keeps people away from church.

The book reports that most Americans believe that the top priority of born-again Christians is, “doing the right thing, being good, and not sinning.” This “strive to be a good Christian” value topped biblical values like “relationships, evangelism, service and family faith.” In another survey, four out of five churchgoers said that “the Christian life is well described as, ‘trying hard to do what God commands’.” Such a primary focus on lifestyle and sin-management as a measure of spirituality leads to what the authors call a “false pretense of holiness,” which outsiders describe as hypocrisy.

We have done a very poor job in the church of clearly defining the distinctive of Christianity. Pastor Tim Keller says it quite well.

Christian theology also speaks of the seriously flawed character of real Christians. A central message of the Bible is that we can only have a relationship with God by sheer grace. Our moral efforts are too feeble and falsely motivated to ever merit salvation. Jesus, through his death and resurrection, has provided salvation for us, which we receive as a gift. All churches believe this in one form or another. Growth in character and changes in behavior occur in a gradual process after a person becomes a Christian. The mistaken belief that a person must “clean up” his or her own life in order to merit God’s presence is not Christianity. This means, though, that the church will be filled with immature and broken people who still have a long way to go emotionally, morally, and spiritually. As the saying has it: “The church is a hospital for sinners, not a museum for saints.”

It seems too often like we Christians are living for others’ approval and forgetting about grace. This isn’t lost on younger generations. “Like it or not, the term ‘hypocritical’ has become fused with young peoples’ experience of Christianity,” say the authors of UnChristian. Eighty-five percent of “outsiders” and half of young churchgoers say so.

To be continued….

Recently I wrote about my extremely brief theater career when I played the lead in my high school musical. I had the role of Don Quixote in Man of La Mancha. It was a glimpse into the future about how I would become a skinny, occasionally delusional old man with impossible dreams. 

You may know that the play is based on Miguel de Cervantes’s seventeenth century novel Don Quixote. The musical unfolds as a play within a play, performed by Cervantes and his fellow prisoners as he awaits a hearing with the Spanish Inquisition. Cervantes takes on the character of “mad knight” Don Quixote and he assigns roles for the other prisoners. In my earlier post I wrote about one spiritual takeaway from the play.

How the gentle “knight errant” viewed the harlot Aldonza was the subject of that article. Quixote saw a lady and gentle spirit buried deep beneath the hardened and bitter exterior. Eventually she believed what the Man of La Mancha said about her and she left her old identity behind. Don Quixote was an agent of grace in her life.

One of the most powerful scenes in the play can also be applied to our Christian journey. The family and acquantances gather to consider how the “mad knight” can be quietly put away. He has become an embarrassement to them even though his efforts were harmless. They plan to stop him while singing how they are “only thinking of him”. The plan is to confront him in a room of mirrors so he can see who he really is. That he is not a courageous knight but a foolish old man. Here is a bit of that scene.

Look, Don Quixote. Look in the mirror of reality…
              and behold things as they truly are.
              Look, Don Quixote.
              Look in the mirror of reality.
              Look! What seest thou, Don Quixote?
              A gallant knight? Naught but an aging fool.
              Look, dost thou see him?
              A madman dressed for a masquerade.
              A masquerade!
              Look, Don Quixote. See him as he truly is.
              See the clown.
              Look, what seest thou, Don Quixote?
              Look! Dost thou see him?
              A madman! Look, Don Quixote!
              See him as he truly is.

The accuser in the play was called the Knight of Mirrors.

Don’t most of us have that fear of being exposed for what we really are to God and to others? We have an accuser in our life as well. Satan is that accuser and he could play the Knight of Darkness to my spiritual knight errant. Whenever I begin to trust and grow in grace he holds the mirror of accusation. If I rewrote the scene above it would look something like this.

Look, Dave Burchett. Look in the mirror of reality…
and behold things as they truly are.
What do you see? A saint? A righteous man?
Naught but a sinner. A man who desires to do the right thing but does the opposite.
How can you love this God and still fail so miserably?
Look! You are a loser dressed for a masquerade called church.

For too many years I believed the accusations. I am learning to look into the mirror and see someone that I accept by faith and not by my performance. I see a saint. That’s right. Many (maybe all) of Satan’s accusations are true. But what I now see is a man who is a saint. I found twenty-nine references to the “saints” in Paul’s writings. I am pretty sure from the content of his writings that they were not always behaving like saints. They were saints because of Christ and not by meticulously following the law.

God sees those who trust Jesus as holy. No matter how many accusations are thrown at me God sees me as holy. Amazing.

All praise to God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly realms because we are united with Christ. Even before he made the world, God loved us and chose us in Christ to be holy and without fault in his eyes.  God decided in advance to adopt us into his own family by bringing us to himself through Jesus Christ. (Ephesians 1, NLT)

That is my (and your) identity. Holy and without fault in His eyes. I will be accused again and probably sooner than later. But I am learning to simply say this to myself.

“That is not who I am anymore. I am a saint who sometimes sins. I am holy because of Christ.”

I pray that is what you see when you look in the mirror of the accuser.

 

 

For reasons I still don’t understand I was cast as the lead in our high school senior musical many, many years ago. I had never acted and I was not a trained singer. That stellar resume got me the lead role of Don Quixote. Go figure. The play was called Man of La Mancha and I realize almost forty years later how daring that choice was for small town Chillicothe, Ohio. Man of La Mancha was pretty edgy for that era. You may know that the play is based on Miguel de Cervantes’s seventeenth century novel Don Quixote. The musical unfolds as a play within a play, performed by Cervantes and his fellow prisoners as he awaits a hearing with the Spanish Inquisition. Cervantes takes on the character of “mad knight” Don Quixote and he assigns roles for the other prisoners. The musical is best known for it’s signature song “The Impossible Dream”.

I did not realize until recent years how you could draw a spiritual allegory from the play. The gentle and naive Don Quixote sees the world through eyes of grace. He sees what people can become and not what they are at the moment. One of the characters is a self-proclaimed whore named Aldonza. But Quixote sees her as a lady and treats her with respect. He calls her Dulcinea, a name that is more befitting of a “lady”. But Aldonza lashes out with fury and hatred toward Quixote. All of her past junk pours out. A mother who did not know which of her many lovers was Aldonza’s father. Men who had used, abused and abandoned her. And now this man calls her a lady and gives her a new name and identity. Throughout the play Aldonza reacts with anger and fear. She hates what she has become but she is afraid to change. At least her identity as a strumpet is familiar. Don Quixote patiently sees her as a soul created with value who can be redeemed.

As the play goes on Aldonza sees that Quixote is real. His attention is not another ploy to use and discard her. And gradually she begins to believe what the old man says is true about her. That she does have value. At the end the “Quixotic” world of the Man of La Mancha is destroyed and he draws his final breath. Quixote’s faithful squire Sancho turns to the grieving woman and calls her Aldonza. She looks at Sancho and gently corrects him as she says her new name.

Dulcinea.

Her identity had been changed by an agent of grace. A parallel can be drawn to what happens to those who place their trust in Christ. Jesus gives us a new identity and He calls us by a new name.

Saint.

We also tend to fight back and remind God of what we used to be and all that is wrong about us now. But Jesus patiently reminds us of our new identity. He tells us that we have been changed. That our spiritual DNA has been rewritten. That we are a new creation in Christ. That we are Holy. When you believe what Jesus says is true about you it will change how you live your life.

I often quote what my friends at Truefaced.com say.  If you are a Christian then God is not interested in changing you. You have already been changed. God is interested in maturing you into what is already true about you.

Paul writes about this mystery to the Church at Corinth.

So we have stopped evaluating others from a human point of view. At one time we thought of Christ merely from a human point of view. How differently we know him now! This means that anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person. The old life is gone; a new life has begun! (NLT)

So we are a new person. Righteous. That is not an “impossible dream” but a theological truth. Christ has imputed His righteousness to us. Paul continues in his letter to the Corinthians.

And all of this is a gift from God, who brought us back to himself through Christ. And God has given us this task of reconciling people to him. For God was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself, no longer counting people’s sins against them. And he gave us this wonderful message of reconciliation. So we are Christ’s ambassadors; God is making his appeal through us. We speak for Christ when we plead, “Come back to God!” For God made Christ, who never sinned, to be the offering for our sin, so that we could be made right with God through Christ.

If I may borrow from the Impossible Dream lyrics…

This is my quest
To follow that star
No matter how hopeless
No matter how far

To fight for the right
Without question or pause
To be willing to march into Hell
For a heavenly cause

And I know if I’ll only be true
To this glorious quest
That my heart will lie peaceful and calm
When I’m laid to my rest.

My quest is to communicate the liberating message of grace till I’m laid to my rest. And that is a very possible dream.

Thirty-five years ago today (July 17th) my beautiful bride to be “pledged her troth” to me. To a recovering hayseed that sounded mildly naughty but I learned it meant that she promised her fidelity to our relationship. She meant it. Today we celebrate well over three decades together. Hard to believe.

Just for grins I went back and took a look at some of the top music in the year we got married. There were some hits that did not make the cut for the solo at our modest wedding. For example, Paul Simon’s “50 Ways To Leave Your Lover” was axed. Go figure. Joni rejected The Captain and Tenille’s moving rendition of “Muskrat Love” without allowing debate. I felt like Queen’s “Bohemian Rhapsody” would be a great crowd warmup. Rejected. “Shake Your Booty” by KC and The Sunshine Band was summarily dismissed.

But one song from 1976 that was not wedding solo worthy still describes how I feel about the lovely Mrs.Burchett.

Orleans had a hit with the song “Still the One” and the lyrics describe exactly how I feel thirty three years after exchanging our vows.

We’ve been together since way back when
Sometimes I never want to see you again
But I want you to know, after all these years
You’re still the one I want whisperin’ in my ear

You’re still the one that makes me laugh
Still the one that’s my better half
We’re still having fun, and you’re still the one

You’re still the one that makes me strong
Still the one I want to take along
We’re still having fun, and you’re still the one

Changing, our love is going gold
Even though we grow old, it grows new

You’re still the one that I love to touch
Still the one and I can’t get enough
We’re still having fun, and you’re still the one

You’re still the one who can scratch my itch
Still the one and I wouldn’t switch
We’re still having fun, and you’re still the one

You are still the one that makes me shout
Still the one that I dream about
We’re still having fun, and you’re still the one…

I thought of the journey that Joni and I have traveled. I am fortunate in one thing. I married my trophy wife first and saved the hassle. But when our wedding pictures are dragged out I have to laugh. There I am with bad 70’s hair and my baby blue Dumb and Dumber tuxedo.

And there is Joni looking gorgeous with her beautiful blue eyes and infectious smile. The reaction is the same for nearly every person who views those photos. A thought bubble rises over their heads with the question…”What was she thinking?”.  I have no idea. I am sure she has asked the same thing. But she has hung in with me and trusted God. She has never tried to change who I am but she has always challenged me to develop my unique design in partnership with the God who loves me. She has prayed for me and our boys more than I can even comprehend. When our marriage monitor flat lined a few years ago she did not give up.

And this is why a man leaves father and mother and cherishes his wife. No longer two, they become “one flesh.” This is a huge mystery, and I don’t pretend to understand it all. What is clearest to me is the way Christ treats the church. And this provides a good picture of how each husband is to treat his wife….   (The Message, Ephesians 5)

It is a mystery. I am grateful for the journey. I am grateful for the potholes and the detours and the times of smooth traveling. I am grateful I chose not to exit or turn around when the journey got tough. We exchanged very inexpensive rings as a symbol of our commitment to each other on that July day in Florida. There is another symbol that I cherish. It is called the Cross. And I would suggest that what happened there is perhaps the biggest reason that Joni and I are still together in this mysterious and wonderful journey.

(For the record…the song selected was “The Wedding Song…There is Love” by Paul Stookey.)

 

(Published earlier at Worldmag.com)

OK, I admit it. I like country music. I also like rock, Motown, jazz, pop, folk, gospel, and classical music. But I once tried to distance myself from country in an ill-fated attempt to be sophisticated. To quote an old family idiom, that effort was like putting earrings on a hog. I am a small town boy and my roots are in the hills of Kentucky. So I no longer deny that I have a few banjos and some fine squirrel recipes in my genetic pool.

In addition to my chromosomal predisposition toward Nashville, I am developing a deep appreciation for the honesty of country music. It is one of the few safe places to discuss God and country and marriage and old-fashioned values without fear of politically correct busybodies getting their undergarments twisted. We all laugh at a few outrageously titled country tunes, but there are many songs that reflect exactly who I am: a proud father, a husband who married way up, a patriotic American, and an unabashed follower of Jesus. Not exactly attributes that would make me an A-lister at elite inside-the-Beltway parties.

On the walk yesterday a song from country duo Montgomery Gentry popped up on the iPod. I had used their song “Some People Change” in an earlier iPod devotional post on my blog. As dog friend Hannah and I walked, I was amazed at how many of their songs lead me to spiritual thoughts and meditation. So here is today’s Montgomery Gentry devotional.

The title track from their CD Back When I Knew It All resonates with me. The lyrics describe the passage for many of us:

Back when the world was flat and Mama and Daddy didn’t have a clue / That was back . . . back when a pitcher of beer and a couple shots made me bulletproof / Back when God was a name I used in vain to get a point across when I got ticked off / Lord I’m learning so much more . . . than back when I knew it all.

I realize now how little I really knew about being a man and about walking with Jesus when I started out. I had bad theology and bad motives, so it should come as no big surprise that I was a bad Christian in how I lived out my faith. I was judgmental because I knew exactly what those “sinners” should be doing. I didn’t know their circumstances or challenges but that did not matter. I didn’t care enough to pray for them or come alongside them to help. I just knew they were wrong and I was better than them. At least I felt that way back when I knew it all. Here is another part of the song:

I’ve learned that love is a woman that will settle you down / a Sunday sermon can turn life around / Man I can’t believe all the answers I’ve found / since . . . back when I knew it all.

Paul wrote these words to the church at Colossae:

And now, just as you accepted Christ Jesus as your Lord, you must continue to follow him. Let your roots grow down into him, and let your lives be built on him. Then your faith will grow strong in the truth you were taught, and you will overflow with thankfulness (Colossians 2:6-7 NLT).

I am grateful for how much God has taught me even after I “knew it all.” The first step was realizing how untrue that feeling was. Now I am amazed at how much I don’t know. The second step was seeking the source of real truth. The journey I am on right now is to really trust that truth and not just know it. I am overflowing with thankfulness that God was patient during the time that I thought I knew it all.

I am learning slowly that trusting truth really does transform you. Especially after you “know” it all.