November 23

Tell God all the truth

“Behold, thou desirest truth in the inward parts” (Psa. 51:6).
“The law of truth was in his mouth” (Mal. 2:6).

Beware of unintentional lying to God. We so often tell the Lord what is untrue! We say we would follow Him—that we desire to be holy and wholehearted and that we are seeking God, when in reality, if we knew our own hearts, we should confess that we were after happiness and not holiness, that we wanted peace and joy and power, and not God Himself.
But there can be no progress in divine things, no believing unto realization, until we tell Him all the truth. Caroline Fry, the author of “Christ our Example,” affords a striking illustration of this. Possessed of wealth, position, and beauty, she was a gay woman of the world until, when still quite young, she grew utterly tired of life. Urged by an unconverted friend to seek consolation in religion, she set herself to this task.

Being of a shrewd and keen intelligence, and illumined by the Spirit of God, she discovered that in all her seeking she had no true desire for the Lord Himself. She then told God the truth. She confessed her true state, and was stripped of all her supposed righteousness. This is how she prayed:
“O God, if Thou art a God, I do not love Thee. I do not seek Thee. I do not believe there is any happiness in Thee, but I am miserable as I am. Give me what I do not seek, do not want. If Thou canst, make me happy; I am tired of this world. If there is anything better, give it me.”
God answered her prayer in one moment. She was immediately saved. Oh, that we would give up telling God what appears to us as the good desires and aspirations of our hearts, and begin to tell Him without fear the bad and unmanageable things within. How soon should we be freed!
—Paget Wilkes.

“Neither shall a deceitful tongue be found in their mouth” (Zeph. 3:13).

I caught a flash of truth one day—
How daring ignorance can be!—
And shut it up within my heart,
A flame that danced and sang for me.

It scorched hypocrisy and sham
And from earth bondage set me free;
Its beauty searched my trembling soul
And bared my inner self to me.
—John Wright Follette.

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