To give hope and comfort and all

Here's another thing that has to do with integrity, with consistency in all of life's domains. You see, in my own life's journey, it's the Bible's deep, honest truths to which I continually turn. They are the steady rock that underpins my every day; the shining past and future realities that blow my mind and proffer security and hope. But if I were to say these truths aloud, I'd notice straight away the points at which they pique and clang, where they need background and nuance to be properly understood. Usually I have already done this work. I've battled through the confronting and seemingly contradictory bits and the qualifiers that need to be made, and this gives me all the more confidence in their unadorned form. But when I say them to myself I don't add all the extra stuff in - I just tell myself the plain truth and that is what so marks my days.

But when I'm with my brothers and sisters in Christ I lose this unashamed talk. All the objections and discomfiting parts come to mind and I feel like a simple word would be misleading or ill-received. And it feels too intense - as though to suddenly speak of spiritual things would bring an embarrassing turn to the conversation. Better to listen and mmm and sympathise.

But why, if the things I know are such a help for me in the stuff of my everyday life, why won't they be helpful for others too? To know that a heaven awaits, and so it won't always be like this. That we are a people wracked by sin, that we do things that should not be done and will never be completely rid of it while on this earth, and yet God knows it all and died for us when we were kicking about in our sin. That nonbelivers do bad and foolish things because they are captivated by Satan and blind to the Father, and that's how we would be but that God saved us, so we should show love and pity, pray hard and share the Gospel with them, never thinking ourselves better.

These things can and should shape all our lives. I need to show my siblings the same consideration I show myself and ever speak true.