Motivation for week 3rd February 2019 – By Rev. Fr. Raymond Osei Tutu

Imagine picking your car up from the garage after a routine tune-up and the technician says, “This car is in great shape. Clearly, you have an automotive genius to take great care of your car.” Later that day, your brakes don’t work. You find out you were out of brake fluid. You could have died. You go back to the shop, and you say, “Why didn’t you tell me?” The technician replies, “Well, I didn’t want you to feel bad. Plus, to be honest, I was afraid you might get upset with me. I want my garage to be a safe place where you feel loved and accepted.” You’d be furious! And you’d say something like, “I didn’t come here for a little fantasy-based ego boost! When it comes to my car, I want the truth.”

This technician is just like those who use the pulpit to promise us heaven on earth without bases. They tell us all those nice things for us to believe so that we don’t feel bad. But of course, it’s not our car so we don’t want the truth. It’s just about our SOULS! I don’t know who is worse: the technician-like preacher who makes his congregation feel good by shouting a series of Amens, Praise the Lord, etc or we whose Souls are being messed around, but we don’t seem to be worried or alarmed. Too many of us enjoy ear tickling and yet we turn around and say we have been deceived. Indeed, this kind of deception is not only rampant in our Churches today, but it is the normative principle behind the top stories on the news, in politics and in relationships. Christian psychologist Henry Cloud reminds us that a true spiritual transformation requires “Grace plus Truth plus Time”.

When it comes to truth and deception this is what André Malraux says, “Man is not what he thinks he is, he is what he hides.” People trust their eyes above all else – but most people see what they wish to see, or what they believe they should see; not what is really there.

Here is the truth about the truth: The truth will set you free, but first it will make you miserable. Have you ever been faced with knowing the truth about a situation, but you didn’t want to say anything because you knew you would pay a price for telling it? For most of us, it could mean losing a friendship or having a brother or sister get angry with us for coming clean or getting kicked out of a group. For others, it could mean losing a job, losing a career, and sometimes even losing a life. So, what will you do? Paul says there is only one way to grow up spiritually: speaking the truth. How grown up are We in this respect?

May your Week not be Weak but with Him! I send you my prayerful wishes for the week.

By Fr. Raymond Osei Tutu ® VR.it)*

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