Honesty is spiritual power.
~ Mary Baker Eddy (S&H 453:16)
Are you having a hard time sorting out an important issue? Sometimes it helps to simply be honest about the facts.
Are you standing in the middle of the clothing department at Macy’s ogling a new outfit, but not sure you should buy it because of the expense? Then be honest about the facts. Can you afford it or not? Is there comfortable room in your budget to justify the expense or should you exercise more patience and discipline until the funds have been demonstrated?
Are you standing in line at Old Country Buffet with plate in hand wondering if
you should put one or two cinnamon rolls on your plate? Be honest. Do you need two cinnamon rolls, or is one plenty?
Are you angry at an action your boss took and wanting to tell him your displeasure but fearful of retribution? Be honest about the facts. Are you capable of communicating your thoughts without creating a worst-case scenario in the end? Or should you be patient, go to God first, heal your anger, and then see if there is a way to make a comment that produces a good effect, or perhaps work it out spiritually in such a way that you don’t have to make a comment.
Honesty is power. It sorts out fact from fiction. It dispels illusions in our mind that create a false sense of security when there is no security. It gives us a reality-check, a jolt of truth that wakes us up from erroneous conclusions that can lead to bad consequences.
Practice honesty in everything you do. Let it be your friend. It will bless you.
That is wonderful advice, Evan. If we can’t be honest with ourselves how can we expect others to be honest. And this honesty has to come from the heart. God is Truth and this acknowledgment can bring peace to individuals, governments and the world.
Oh! Yes, honesty is the best policy FOR MOST. But what about wisdom in the use of honesty. Take for instance, a Jew in Germany during WW11. Should the Jew run up to a Nazi and say, “I am Jewish, arrest me?” Then honesty in this case isn’t the best policy. There are quite a few cases like such that wisdom, God, will let one know when to be honest. YES?
Wow! This is so simple, direct, compelling and TRUE! How often do I bend, or distort, or avoid, or skip when tender but total honesty was needed and appropriate. Thanks for the wake-up!
To Tobias,
Interesting point. Jesus also taught “Be wise as serpents,” and there were times when he circulated in private amid the public crowds because he knew the “police” were out to get him. I think the main point of my blog was to not find comfort in practicing dishonesty. Which was the greater evil for the Jew in Germany: avoiding detection, if possible, from severely inhumane laws, or willingly turning oneself into the Nazis and sent to a concentration camp? I think the latter…
I am acquainted with the situations of various students of CS during Nazi occupied countries in WWII. Tobias was right. The Nazis did not like Jews, Christian Scientists, Gypsies, and certain other groups. Lying was an acceptable expedient to death, or other horrors.
I think Evan is writing about spiritual honesty — being true to Love and Truth, seeing oneself in the way that God sees us. To confess one’s religious status to the personification of evil is not being honest to God or oneself; it is submitting to error. There are degrees of honesty: being obedient to Truth or to error. Christian Science teaches the former, which is absolute honesty.