Growing Into the Fullness of Truth

Growing Into the Fullness of Truth -  By Steve Wickham

None of us had perfect parents. All of us have flaws. Why, then, do we imagine we're more right than we actually are? And, most of the time we would rather protect our parents from the shame of their failures in not bringing us up 'properly', when realistically all parents make the same sorts of errors, not accounting for the mistakes of abuse and neglect.
If we're committed to the truth we will see our parents' faults, acknowledge it for what it is, forgive them, and move on in love.
Simple thesis, here: we cannot love unconditionally without going the full journey with truth. The truth will set us free (John 8:32), but where we allow non-truths to fix themselves to us we'll be bonded.
THE INFINITE NATURE OF TRUTH
So, the truth will set us free, and, if we can imagine truth being infinite in its nature, we may understand that there is no limit to the quality and extent of freedom we might experience.
Surely none of us has come close to the total amount of experienced freedom available for approaching the fullness of truth within our lives.
We all have more work to do if we want more freedom; spiritual freedom. The outworking of such freedom is the Fruit of the Spirit. Hope, joy, peace, love, patience, etc, can all be ours, within our characters, more in their fullness.
But first, we have our work to do in exploring the grand truths that lay folded up in our futures and, therefore, ready for the unfolding. We may fear going there, addressing the ills of our childhoods, for fear of disrespecting parents, or worse, perhaps, because we fear what the truth will do to us.
We should have no fear, because if we truly believe God is with us, God will not forsake us.
WHERE OUR PARENTS AND UPBRINGING FIT IN
For most of us it's not so much what our parents did to us, but what they didn't do for us. As I look at my own parenting, notwithstanding the things, as a family, that we are proud of, there are so many things I haven't done or haven't done well enough. This is something for my children to work out as they become their own persons in adulthood. It's their task, much as it is our task to grow into the fullness of our truth, as God presents it in the context of our lives.
It's our task, also, and our heaviest responsibility, to grow into the fullness of truth - our truth. There is no truth more relevant for our learning than our own truth - that which remains buried in the past. When we are able to plumb those depths, even briefly, we are growing more into the fullness of our truth.
Our truth - our history - is not an abstract set of truths.
It's historical truth, and God gives us the opportunity in wrangling with it. When we do this and we learn to explore without fear, God opens up all sorts of special revelations, revealing his perfect truth to us. This counters our historical truth; we challenge what we have always believed and we conform these beliefs to the truth, or we reject them. There, in that process of conforming our pasts to the truth, do we reconcile ourselves to freedom.
The truth sets us free. Truth is infinite in nature. The more we can grow into the fullness of truth, particularly as it applies to our own lives, the more freedom we can enjoy. This is God's destiny for each of us; to grow into the fullness of truth so as to grow into the fullness of God. The fullness of truth facilitates the fullness of love.
© 2013 S. J. Wickham. Steve Wickham is a Registered Safety Practitioner and holds Degrees in Science, Divinity, and Counselling. Steve writes at: http://epitemnein-epitomic.blogspot.com.au/ and http://tribework.blogspot.com.au/ Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Steve_Wickham  Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/7474302


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