(Part one of a two-part series)
I loved playing outdoors as a child.
As a result, I often scraped my knees,
had a bicycle accident
or fell off my skateboard.
The answer to my cuts and scrapes was found in a little brown bottle kept in our bathroom medicine cabinet: Mercurochrome. It was a red liquid applied to your wound. I can’t help but laugh when I think of this, because as a child, if your nasty blood-filled scrape didn’t scare you, this blood-looking liquid would.
We no longer use it because it contained
MERCURY.
It’s now a thing of the past.
When I was 12 years old, I spent my allowance on a “Water
Wiggle” that promised to alleviate the 102-degree summer Oklahoma heat. It consisted of a seven-foot plastic hose attached to an aluminum water-jet nozzle that was covered by a bell-shaped plastic head.
Torrents of water spurted out of the plastic head faster than
even Usain Bolt could run. Because of the tremendous force of water through the hose, it jerked the plastic head in spasms—sort of chasing you around your front yard.
A few years later Wham-O removed Water Wiggles from the
market because it had caused the death of two children, and it’s now a thing of the past.
Our family took a vacation each summer, and I clearly
remember my dad using a paper map to plan our route. Google’s
map-finders hadn’t yet been born. Using paper maps are now a
thing of the past.
I also remember my parents,
my Sunday school teachers,
my pastors,
and my school teachers teaching me the
importance of truth.
Telling a lie was wrong.
It broke the eighth commandment.
It was something for which you’d confess and seek forgiveness.
Sadly, for many people today, truth is now a thing of the
past.
But it shouldn’t be
especially for those of us who call ourselves Christians!
We are to live our lives with integrity and in truth.
“Do not lie to each other, since you have taken off your old self with its practices” (Colossians 3:9
And check this out: “Therefore each of you must put off
falsehood and speak truthfully. . . .” (Ephesians 4:25
How does God feel about lying? “The LORD detests lying lips,
but he delights in those who are trustworthy” (Proverbs 12:22
Proverbs 6:16-20 gives us a list of things the LORD hates, and
lying is one of them.
I want to be a disciple of Truth.
I desire to be a woman of Integrity.
And I pray my life will reflect Christ’s honesty.
Back in the early 1900s Howard Walter wrote a song that has
lain dormant in our hymnals for decades: “I Would Be True.”
Why do we no longer sing it?
Could the reason be that truth is simply no longer a priority?
Check out the first verse:
“I would be true, for there are those who trust me.
I would be pure, for there are those who dare.
I would be strong, for there is much to suffer.
I would be brave, for there is much to dare.”
This is the heart-cry of someone who desires to live with integrity!
May we not let truth become a thing of the past!
Thoughts?
I’d appreciate your prayers this weekend as I speak in Highland, IN.
