Authenticity

"Now you followed my teaching, conduct, purpose, faith, patience, love, perseverance, persecutions and sufferings, such as happened to me at Antioch, at Iconium and at Lystra; what persecutions I endured, and out of them all the Lord rescued me! Indeed, all who desire to live Godly in Christ Jesus will be persecuted. But evil men and impostors will proceed from bad to worse, deceiving and being deceived. You, however, continue in the things you have learned and become convinced of, knowing from whom you have learned them." (2 Timothy 3:10-14)


Insanity has been described as doing the same thing over and over again, expecting a different result. Sanity, then, can be described as "wholeness of mind; making decisions based on truth."


I may not be all I am supposed to be yet. But I have come so, SO far from who I was. "Progress, not perfection" has saved me time and time again. Because I live my life now as an ongoing process to dedication to reality at all costs, so even when I mess up, I can still choose to stop, get back onto the path and keep going. This is an incredibly precious gift to me, and a concept I wish I had grasped and lived the first 14 years of being a Christian. 


It doesn't matter what is said about me or to me. It only matters what God says about me and to me, and that my responses at every turn are to HIM and to HIS TRUTH, not some random person's evil twists on the truth. This is what matters. There is no sense in putting any stock in what's said or done by evil men and women, impostors who care more about looking wrong or feeling wrong than they do of the fact that they ARE wrong. 


I know exactly what I have "learned and become convinced of," and I know exactly from "whom I have learned" these things. So I choose today, and every day, to go on the truth that I know: Jesus loves me. He has changed me. I am new. And that is an authentic life, and a permanent one. 


Period.


Thank you so much, Lord, for the sanity and peace of mind I have in you. Thank you SO MUCH from saving me from myself, from looking at things in my own twisted, finite, erroneous way. I am so grateful that Your Truth is absolute. As Churchill said, "Truth is incontrovertible. Panic may resent it, ignorance may deride it, malice may distort it. But there it is." 


Amen.