Somewhere along the way, it seems we’ve stopped valuing what is 100% truth. It’s become a social norm to soften anything that may be misconstrued, or considered to be remotely troubling, or difficult to hear. We have gotten to the point where just stating a fact can upset, hurt, and even ruin a relationship. The issue with sugarcoating things is that, at some point, you will have to bite into the sour part of the candy.
Sour Patch Kids are a wonderful example of this. I was talking with my wife the other day about just how accurate these candies really are. My daughter can be a “sour patch kid” at times. She will do something that has me wondering what I’ve done in my life to deserve such treatment. She will do something that irritates and angers her mother and me. But then moments later, she will do something so sweet, that it makes us forget about the sour taste she gave us just moments before.
This is the issue that we have in this world. We sugarcoat things to soften the blow, but we have gotten to the point where we never bring out the sour part. We just have sugar coating sugar. What I mean by this is we tell people things they want to hear, never telling the truth that would force a change in someone. I once had a pastor tell me a long time ago that if you’re not offended by what you read in the Bible, then you are not reading your Bible correctly. I really thought about this. The more I thought about it, the more I realized he was right. When I read my Bible openly and honestly, seeking the heart of God, I don’t find God telling me that I have it all together and that I’m just doing awesome. I find Him correcting me. I find Him convicting me of things that I am doing that I shouldn’t be doing. I find Him revealing new areas in my life in which I need to grow stronger and closer to Him. Sometimes, I don’t like it and it leaves a sour taste in my mouth because I don’t like being told I’m wrong. However, even in the hardest and most sour times of reading my Bible and talking with God, I always walk away with a sweet taste of knowing that I’m loved. Somehow, through all the correcting and convicting, I still feel the love of a heavenly Father.
This perplexed me. How is it possible that God can tell me I’m wrong, that I need to fix things, and even though I should feel upset by the things He's telling me, I walk away feeling loved and known? It’s because God finds no joy in pointing out my imperfections, but He finds joy in loving me enough to point out my imperfections. I think that is something we need to learn in our day and age. Correction and conviction from God are not condemning, but rather they demonstrate His love for us. If I truly love someone, I will speak truth into their life, even if it hurts their feelings. But I will do it with a tender heart, hoping and praying that it brings them closer to God.
I challenge all who read this to start stepping back from sugarcoating everything and let us start standing firm on 100% truth, regardless of how we feel people will receive it. Do it in love and start asking God, “How, Lord, do we deliver a difficult truth with love and how do we do it to display Your heart?” I encourage you today to worry less about how things will be received and worry more about speaking the truth. Imagine if the men who wrote the Word of God worried about how it would be received rather than writing what God spoke to them. We would have a sweet, fluffy book that would never help anyone. We need those sour moments to help us grow and to wake us up from our sugary dreams.
Ephesians 4:15: Instead, speaking the truth in love, we will grow to become in every respect the mature body of him who is the head, that is, Christ
