From 'Your Truth' to God's Truth

"If you look for truth, you may find comfort in the end; if you look for comfort you will get neither comfort nor truth—only soft soap and wishful thinking to begin with, and in the end, despair."

C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity

"Human wisdom makes us keep doubting, whereas God’s wisdom brings us to a firm decision."

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Cost of Discipleship

“Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways submit to him, and he will make your paths straight. Do not be wise in your own eyes; fear the Lord and shun evil.”

Proverbs 3:5-7

“Live your own truth.” This little phrase has been popping up in different conversations I’ve been a part of and I bet it’s shown up in yours too. It’s quickly become public conventional wisdom, a way to sagely affirm the decisions folks make we don’t fully understand or perhaps disagree with. It’s a way to say “However I feel about what you’re doing or saying, I don’t judge you, I support you, we’re good.” A maneuver to smooth out ruffled feathers in advance, a particularly Canadian virtue. And that may be, but it’s not a Christian virtue. In fact, a follower of Jesus cannot make this part of their lexicon. That’s because to use this phrase suggests that truth is subjective and personal rather than objective and universal. 

But Jesus teaches that truth is not something that individuals create for themselves, but something that is revealed by God and grounded in His nature. Jesus says, "I am the way, the truth, and the life" (John 14:6), indicating that truth is found in Him, not in personal experiences or perspectives.

The idea of "living your truth" implies that what is true for one person might not be true for another, making truth relative. However, in Jesus we learn that God's truth is absolute, transcending individual beliefs or circumstances. As followers of Jesus, we acknowledge that the bible serves as the revealed word of God, offering guidance, wisdom, and instruction for living in accordance with His truth. When we prioritize our subjective experiences over God's objective truth, it can lead to moral relativism, where the concepts of right and wrong become blurred.

Consider telling a Neo-Nazi “Live your truth man.” Effectively what would we be saying? Keep on being chronically hate filled and racist to those who aren’t aryan, keep doing you! But that’s ridiculous. And more important, that’s morally putrid. Do you see that?

There’s no such things as ‘your truth’. There is Truth, to be discovered. And our job is to align with that truth. Can there be disagreement on what is true? Sure, that is inevitable. But we must be true followers of Jesus, people of substance and character that are willing to dive into the weeds of moral disagreement and discourse, to discover God’s truth and then to align our lives according to that truth. To affirm that there are private truths we can all live is to defect from this calling and to create a circumstance where we affirm each other's sins and brokenness at the expense of the healing God calls us to. It’s to affirm spiritual death, ethical meaninglessness in the attempt to have a polite and comfortable life. Which is another way of living a dead life. 

As St Paul writes:

"But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved." Ephesians 2:4-5

Jesus Christ is the truth that raises us from the death of sin—a death we endure when we rely on our limited wisdom. Our tendency is to reduce God’s truth to a mere human construct, using it to justify our sin and brokenness. My dear friends, we are called to more. 

We are called to align our lives with God's truth rather than simply following our own desires or interpretations. The focus is on living according to God's will and teachings, not on defining one's own version of truth. For there is no such thing, only the Truth found in the person of Jesus Christ.