THE RELUCTANT FLAME

As someone who believes in Christ as the way, the truth and the life, I have always faced different challenges with telling others about the truth about him to them. Not because I don’t believe it is the truth but because I fear that the truth I so much believe in might be perceived as “my perspective” and also because the truth is just too hard to accept and not as easy as I think it is just because I’m privileged to know it.

I have come to understand that no matter how much effort I put in to make people understand the truth, the way and the life (Jesus Christ), that is never what guarantees them to believe or just accept it. But most times I forget this and do things wrongly by taking it personally and passing the wrong message. So even if I have the knowledge of the truth, I still fail to make others see it. And today, I learnt one hard truth and I think I can relate to how it feels when we realize we have been wrong about something almost all our lives.

Standing by the truth is one of the hardest things to do. You will face so much oppositions and even lose people. It is so much easier to just deny the truth and be cool with everyone but then, you know deep down that this truth is the only way the other person can be saved even though it might be hard for them to understand it at first and you keep telling them about it with every opportunity you get but then, it is never in our place to force them to see things the way we see it. We can only just hope they see the truth someday.

I can’t remember how much I have talked about truth here in this community and I’m hoping someone isn’t already tired of reading about me talking about truth because I somehow always have a thing or two to say about “TRUTH”when I write to the flames. Maybe it is because we only want to hear the things that supports what we do and not the truth. We live in a time when the truth is perceived as judgment and that is because we have so many of us that are guilty of it. We fail to see the part of salvation in it. We fail to see reasons with why the truth has come to us. We fail to see the love behind why someone keeps trying to tell us about just that one thing (the truth) even when it is hard for them.

Like I said, it is easier to just let people stick to whatever they already believe in but then, for someone who knows the dangers in going to a particular direction, they will always try their best to advise those walking on that path to take a better path but they can never force them out of that way.

I remember one time when my younger brother told me I get angry too easily. I was mad at him and I was trying to defend myself and then he said, “see! This is exactly what I’m talking about”. And after that conversation I had with him, I sat down and thought things through again and for some reasons, I saw sense in what he has said and I became more intentional about working on myself.

Do you know the interesting thing? I have heard from so many persons who told me about that same thing before but it never really made me think of changing, it only made me defensive and right in my own eyes. But when my younger brother told me about it again that day, it was only then everything others having been trying to make me see made sense. My brother was surprised about how I took his advice that day because he expected me to act the same old way but I was grateful he reminded me again that day because that was when I saw the light.

I might probably still be battling so much to change by now if he had given up on me or if I had responded in a way that made him see me as someone that wouldn’t change. And since then, I have learnt to appreciate those that are bold enough to confront me with the truth even when it is capable of breaking our relationship. It must have taken them a lot to do that but they did anyways.

Notwithstanding, I’ll agree that this is not something easy to do. It’s just like the flame, it’s hard to let it burn when it hurts. We rather just stay away from it but sometimes, we might have to feel that heat to break free from the bondage of ignorance or lies.

Thank you for reading through. 💜