Honesty...

This last week has been interesting to say the least...The Lord definitely put some HUGE obstacles in front of me and challenged me to stick up for His kingdom.  Through prayer and time meditating on His word this past week, I really just asked the Lord to challenge me, change me, and mold me into the person He meant for me to be. 
Lets just say that He definitely made all of those things happen...in very difficult ways! 
The obstacles that I went through this past week really challenged my faith and honesty.  The Lord put so much on my radar this week it was kinda hard to take it all in to be honest.

I guess it all starts with the honesty part. All I can say is it's such a looked down upon thing in today's society its hard to be completely honest with someone now a days.  Especially with someone you love like a brother/sister. Having said this, things in life sometimes require blunt honesty and usually when it comes to that point its not something enjoyable to talk about.  We as followers of Christ are called to hold our brothers/sister in Christ accountable for their actions. Telling someone you care about that they are doing something that is contradicting what the Lord has called us to do, is one of the hardest things I think I have ever done in my life.  It is so hard to do because we don't want to hurt our friendship with that person we love, but when I thought about this later I realized that having the mindset of "hurting feelings or hurting relationships" is not the mindset we should have.
That mind set is something that I think gets a lot of people into trouble.  Not having the courage to tell your friends because you don't wanna hurt their feelings is ridiculous.  As I was thinking about this whole honesty thing I started thinking about the future and what could happen if we as Christians aren't honest with those we love.  It came down to a "tell your friends now, or loose them later" type of deal.  Are we courageous and caring enough to call them out on their ways now so that they can again see the light, or are we gonna wait and watch them lead a life that is not what Christ would do?  After thinking about this, I realized that only after much prayer and meditation on the word should we confront someone about their lifestyle choices.

The day after I had prayed, the Lord gave me the boldness and courage I needed to talk to this person.  It is pretty sweet to look back on the conversation and see that the Lord gave me the perfect words to say to confront the situation.  Its crazy how when you are honest with someone the result of the talk can be much better than you may have anticipated.  Although I know my words cannot change this person, I have faith that through continuous prayer the Lord will change the heart of his child!  Its also amazing to see how the Lord has increased my ability to love on this person through this experience.

I guess the whole point of this post was to just show that if you have faith and you ask the Lord to give you the words, you can make that difference in somebody's life!  Honesty may hurt up front but in the end it will pay off!

"Let your words be the genuine picture of your heart!"

Romans 8:8
"Those controlled by the sinful nature cannot please God."