I’m going to tackle a very difficult topic, to tackle in 45-minutes it’s difficult because of the nature of the content. It’s interesting if you read the Book of John, there is a very important word that’s mentioned 27 times. And, yet, when you look at Matthew,  and Luke,  it’s rarely mentioned. And, the word, generally, almost exclusively, is used by Jesus. And, the word that I am referring to is the word TRUTH.
You’re probably familiar with some of the Scripture in John. John 8:31-32 it says,

“If you continue in My word, then you will truly be My disciples. And you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”

And, then John 14:6 when Jesus says,

“I am the way, the truth, and the life. No man comes to the Father but through Me.”

In the Christian life, truth is paramount. And, of course, Jesus is speaking the truth with Pilate, and then Pilate says,

“What is truth?”

And, then walks away before Jesus can even respond.

In its simplest definition, truth is that which is real and actual. It’s that which conforms to reality.

C. S. Lewis says,

“Once you embrace Christianity, not because it makes you feel good, but because it’s true. Christianity is not a patent medicine. Christianity claims to give an account of facts to tell you what the real universe is like.”

Now, there are a number of different truth categories that we could talk about that are vitally important. But I want to hone in on one category of truth today that is very pertinent to this series that we’ve been doing. If you think about it, and I really noticed this because of my children as I’m watching them grow up. Every single human being enters into this life and begins to try and make sense of it. And, as we grow older, we begin to develop certain ideas about how life works. And, I don’t care how old you are, we continue that quest, trying to figure out how life really works. And, as we develop these sets of ideas, what we find is that this is what governs our thinking, and tells us what the world is like, and how we should live in it.

I mean, think about these words. Think about them.

Success
Love
Sex
Money
Pleasure
Happiness
Friendship
Material Possessions
Suffering
Death
Heaven
Hell

These are all important issues in a man’s life and each of us has formed a certain set of beliefs and ideas about each of them. Maybe we’ve never articulated them, but we have them. And, this is what I really want to focus on this morning. Our beliefs or ideas are either true or they’re false.

It’s like Drayton last week, he shared a very fundamental, basic idea from the Scriptures. An idea on the issue of happiness. And, as he pointed out, his idea has the support of Scripture. And, either that idea is true or it’s not true.

That’s why Blaise Pascal said that the reason that people struggle so much with life is because they have false ideas about reality. Think about that.

Dallas Willard says,

“Why do people find their lives in chaos and their souls running amok? One of the primary reasons is that they are blinded by false ideas, distorted images, and misinformation, so that their souls cannot find its way into a life of consistent truth, and a harmonious pursuit of what is good.”

And, so this is what, guys, I contend, is so crucial for us to grasp. Because there is nothing more dangerous than building our lives on false ideas and false assumptions.

A number of years ago, a professor down at UAB, a Dr. George Graham articulated this quite well. Listen to what he said.

“It takes a tremendous amount of courage to face the truth. People who have the habit of not facing the truth have a habit of having trouble living in every aspect of their lives, in their job, and in their personal relationships.”

And, then he says this, and this, really, kind of what I want to focus on this morning.

“Being centered on the truth is crucial to a healthy, vital human life.”

And, so that’s a good question that we should all ask this morning. Are we healthy men?

I’m not talking about physical health, obviously. I’m talking about mentally, emotionally, psychologically, and spiritually. I mean, think about it. It starts with our relationships. Do I have healthy relationships? That, to me, is one of the real marks of a healthy man. Healthy relationships. Healthy marriage. A healthy relationship with your children. Your friendships with other men. Is your family life flourishing? Or is it troubled? And, what about your work? Are you suffocating in your work? Do you hate what you do? Are you filled with fear? How well do you sleep at night? And, then what about your habits? Are there any addictions in your life?

I heard a guy speak, he says, “Over 65% of men in our country are either addicted to alcohol, drugs, gambling, tobacco or pornography. 65%. I don’t know whether that’s true, but that’s what they say. And, then what do you do with your free time? That says a lot also. I mean, you spend all of your free time in front of the TV, or in front of the computer. And, what about your relationship with God? Your spiritual life. Is your relationship with Him deepening as time goes by, and do you have that strong foundation to undergird your life?

And, I would just say this, personally, just from reading the periodicals that I read, whether it’s The Wall Street Journal or whether you listen to the news. I, personally, believe that we are not a very healthy culture. And, what’s interesting is the social scientists back this up.

There was an interesting book, in fact, Drayton has mentioned it. It was published back in 2003. It is called The Progress Paradox: How Life Gets Better When People Feel Worse. And, there’s been a great deal of research at institutions like Princeton and Yale and Harvard. And, what they’ve been trying to determine is the relationship between happiness and rising prosperity. And, what’s happened is the results have been quite baffling! Over the last 60 years, our economic well-being has gone like this (up), and yet our mental, emotional, psychological, and spiritual well-being has plummeted. You know, we somehow, naturally, I think, logically think, they both ought to go in the same direction; the more prosperous you get, the healthier you should be. And, yet, just the opposite is taking place. And, we wonder why. The researchers find it baffling!

Well, I think one of the issues is what I just read to you from Dr. George Graham when he said,

“We are unhealthy because our lives are not centered on what is true. Our lives are not in harmony with the truth.”

Around 20 years ago, I heard a quote, and I don’t know why it was, but this quote really connected with me at the time, and it’s still is very meaningful. Even though I had somewhat forgotten it until I started preparing this talk. It comes from Jack Welch back, I want to say it was 1992. If you remember, Welch was the former CEO of General Electric, https://www.ge.com/ and in his heyday was probably one of the most admired business leaders in the world. He did just a masterful job of turning GE around. And, he shared this quote, and I want to read it to you. In fact, I’m going to read it twice. First, he’s talking about corporations. I’m going to read it, but then, I’m going to substitute the word corporation with the word individual. Listen to this. He says,

“They key trait of a vibrant, dynamic corporation is looking reality straight in the eye, and then acting upon it with as much speed as you can.”

Listen to this. Again.

“They key trait of a vibrant, dynamic individual is looking reality straight in the eye, and then acting upon it with as much speed as you can.”

If you read Welch’s biography, which came out right when he retired, he’ll tell you, this is the foundational management belief that he implemented at GE. And, he says, interestingly,

“I learned this from my mother, who always insisted on facing the truth, regardless of the situation.”

Now, in the Old Testament, we read about an individual. We probably know more about this guy’s life, maybe more so than anybody else because there’s so much about him. And, the person I speak of is David. You see him as a young man and then you see him die in 1 Chronicles 29. And, one of the really dark times in his life was when he was king and Israel was at its zenith; it’s very powerful. And, his army was off at war, and it says this was a time when kings are supposed to be with their armies in these kinds of battles. But David was back at his palace, and it says it was late in the afternoon, he had just gotten out of bed. That kind of tells you what was going on in his life. And, he’s just kind of wandering around the palace. He looks down and he can see this beautiful woman taking a bath, Bathsheba. He sends for her. She comes. They have sexual relations. He sends her home, thinking everything is just fine. She sends word that she is pregnant. So, David, seeking to cover it up, he sends for her husband, who’s in the battle, Uriah. He brings him to the palace, gets him intoxicated, and says, “You need to go home and be with your wife.” You see what he’s trying to do. But Uriah is such an honorable man, he refuses to. He says, “My men are at battle,” and he sleeps on the porch. And, David sees that his scheme didn’t work, so he sends Uriah back with a note saying “Put Uriah on the front lines.” And, he is put on the front lines and he’s killed.

David marries Bathsheba and thinks everything is fine as if he’s done nothing wrong. There’s no guilt until the very wise prophet Nathan approaches him. And, he shares with David this parable about a rich man and a poor man. The poor man has this little lamb and the rich man has a guest come to his house. And, instead of using one of the many of the lambs in his herd, he goes and takes the poor man’s, kills it, and they have it for dinner. And, David is listening to this, and he is enraged! And, he says to Nathan, “This man will surely die!” And, Nathan confronted him and said, “You are the man.” And, it just pierces David. And, you see, it breaks him. And, even though he pays a heavy price, as far as the consequences, it transforms his life. And, he finishes strong. But if you read Psalm 51, which is a prayer of David after all this, after he’s confronted, after he sees the truth about himself and what he has done, you see this contrite prayer. And, in Verse 6 it says,

“You desire truth in our inner being. Make me, therefore, to know wisdom in my inmost heart.”

And, it’s interesting. In one of the modern versions, where you see a paraphrase of the Bible, you read this,

“What you desire for my life is truth in my heart. Therefore, conceive in me a life of truth.”

You know, if you think about it, this is what Jesus says in the Sermon on the Mount. In Matthew 7. He says,

“Why is it that we are so consumed with pointing out the specs and the flaws and the deficiencies and the sin in our brothers’ eyes, but we don’t see the log in our own life.”

He’s saying why are you always noticing other people’s faults but don’t see the truth about yourself?

You know, one of the things that I pray for my children each day is, “Lord, I pray that You would give my children the eyes to see the lies of this life.” Because their minds and their hearts are so easily filled with the lies, whether it’s from the media or whatever type of communication they are confronted with for entertainment, or whatever.

This is why Drayton’s words on obedience, I think, rings so true, guys. Remember what he said last week?

“Where we seek to align our wills with God’s will.”

And, in essence, what he’s saying, we are seeing to align our lives with God’ truth.

Jesus, in John 17 says,

“Lord, Thy word is truth.”

And, the reason is we want to prosper in our relationship with the truth instead of breaking our lives over it.

Now, what I want to do is take about 20 minutes, and talk about how the Bible says the various ways we respond to the truth. And, I want to look at four different ways men and women respond to the truth. There may be more ways, but these are four that I clearly see in the Bible, and that I see clearly in our lives. And, the first I want to look at is in the Book of Romans 1:21 where God is speaking about godlessness and its consequences. Then, He says in Romans 1:25,

“They exchanged the truth of God for a lie and worshiped and served the creation rather than the creator, who is blessed forever.”

And, that word creation comes from the Greek word ktisis, which means product of creation. In other words, anything out in the created world. And, what we are called to do, guys, we are called and designed to give God first place, to have primary loyalty in our lives, and to love Him with all of our heart, soul, mind, and strength. And, yet, what Paul is saying is we give our hearts to something in creation. That’s what the Bible calls idolatry. And, what’s so interesting is that the idols are generally not sinful things, but good and basic products of creation that are elevated to ultimate things.

This is what Philp Yancey says. He says,

“In the Old Testament, God complained” and this is from Jerimiah 2:13 “My people have forsaken me the spring of living water, and they’ve dug their own cisterns, broken cisterns that cannot hold water. An idolater chooses things that may be good in themselves and grants them a power they were never meant to have. What once was called idolatry enlightened Westerners call addictions.”

Now, instead of giving God preeminence in our lives, our depravity predisposes us to want to be independent of God and build our lives around the products of creation, to be autonomous. To be a law unto ourselves so that we can be in control of our lives so that we can shape our lives in the direction that we want it to go, not necessarily where God wants them to go. And, so, when we think in our minds and in our heads that we know what’s best for our lives and God does not, we have exchanged the truth of God for a lie. If we believe that totally surrendering our lives to Jesus will lead to an unhappy life, we have exchanged the truth of God for a lie. And, if we believe that loving the world, and all the products of creation will lead to my well-being and happiness, then we have exchanged the truth of God for a lie.
There is a proper place for productions of creation; they’re for our good. But there’s a proper place for them and there’s a proper place for God.

Now, a second way we deal with the truth is, really, quite interesting, and kind of baffling. You see, the truth is often very hard. And, a reasonable person will generally pursue the truth, wherever it leads. But we need to know there’s kind of a cowardly side to use that balks at the truth when it begins to lead us anywhere that we really don’t want to go. You see this both in the Old and New Testament. What I call this is, what we do, the truth is hard, and we try to soften it. We try to soften it.

Listen to what Isaiah says, in Isaiah 30. He’s talking about the people of Israel. He says,

“This is a rebellious people. They refuse to listen to the instruction of the Lord. They say to the seers (the prophets) you must not see visions. You must not prophesize to us what is right.” Listen to this. “Instead, speak pleasant words to us.”

We don’t want to hear the truth! We want to hear what’s pleasant. In fact, he goes on to say,

“Speak to us pleasant words. Prophesize illusions.”

In other words, we don’t want to hear what is pleasant. We don’t want to hear what’s true. We want to hear what’s pleasant, even if it’s not true! And, then he says,

“Whatever you do, get out the way. Turn aside from the path. We do not want to hear any more about the Holy One of Israel.“

You know, that’s, I think, a real problem we have. We don’t want to hear hard words. We don’t want to hear that hard truth. Tell me something that’s pleasant. Make me feel good. That’s what so many of us want, we want to feel good. And, yet, the truth often makes us feel bad.

Now, in 2 Timothy some of Paul’s very last words, right before he dies, he says,

“For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine, but wanting to have their ears tickled, they will accumulate for themselves teachers in accordance to their own desires, and therefore will turn away their ears from the truth, and in the process will turn aside to myths.”

A number of years ago, I was given a recorded message on a cassette, that just shows you how old it was. And, it was a theologian speaking. He taught at a seminary in one of the main-line denominations. And, he was an excellent speaker and a Godly man. And, I take it that he was speaking to a big group of ministers in his denomination; that’s kind of what I gathered. Because he was kind of giving them a hard time. He says,

“You know, one of the problems in our denomination? You will rarely ever hear anyone preach on the importance” and he used this word, “of being saved. We don’t like that word in our denomination. The reason you guys don’t like it, it makes people feel uncomfortable. It sounds too evangelical. Are you saved? The problem is we avoid that because it seems to me, we have this propensity, I want people in my congregation to feel good, not uncomfortable! And yet, you go into the Scriptures. For instance, you start with the Christmas message. When the angel comes to Joseph, he says, ‘Mary is gonna have a child, conceived of the Holy Spirit and you will call His name Jesus, for He will save His people from their sins.’ And, then, Jesus comes along in Luke 19:10 and says, ‘For the Son of Man has come to seek and save that which was lost. Luke 9:15, Jesus said, ‘I didn’t come to destroy men’s lives, I came to save them.’ He’s saying I am a rescuer! Jesus is a Savior; He offers salvation! That’s what it means to be saved!”

I had a guy tell me recently, he said a couple of years ago, he was on a search committee for his church. And, he told me this kind of funny story. He said,“We found this great, great candidate.” And, I don’t know if it’s the guy that currently they chose for their church or not. He said,

“We found a great candidate. He was just, he was articulate. He was Godly. He knew the Scriptures. And, we’re in there talking about him, and we’re all talking good about him. And, somebody raised his hand and said, ‘I got one problem with this guy.’ And, they were all, kind of, stunned. What’s the problem? ‘He talks too much about sin.”

Now, think about it. The Bible is like a mirror that shows us our sin. And, so, that should be one of the natural outcomes of teaching from the Scriptures; the conviction of our sinfulness.
Listen to what C.S. Lewis https://www.cslewis.com/us/ says,

“In our spiritual life, most often, the thing we need most is often hidden in the words or ideas that are most uncomfortable to us. These troubling words often mark the reality to which we need to be awakened in most seriously. It is here we should focus our time and attention. To turn away would be unwise. And, yet, turning away is often the approach we take. When we make this choice, we are not only failing to step forward in our knowledge of God, we are stepping backward. By failing to seek the truth with all of our hearts, we remain on the outside of the door. In essence, choosing to avoid discomfort, we have chosen what we want God to be instead of finding out who He really is.”

Guys, the truth is often hard. And, one way to deal with it is to try to soften it, or not talk about it, or avoid it. As Isaiah says, “Tell us what’s pleasant, even if it’s an illusion. Even if it’s not true.”

Now, a third way we respond to the truth, and this is really interesting, is also found in Romans 1:18. In fact, it’s really tied to the first, but there is, I think, a distinction between the two, I would say. Paul says this,

“For the wrath of God is revealed from Heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth in unrighteousness.”

In the context of this, suppression here, in Romans 1:18, is defined as an active holding down of the truth. It’s what the Bibles calls “unbelief.” And, it’s interesting. If you go back and read in Mark 6:1-6, Jesus is in the midst of His ministry, and word has spread. And, He comes into His own hometown, where He grew up, Nazareth. And, the people, they marvel at His words. But, it says, He didn’t do any miracles. He healed a few people. Because they took offense to Him. They didn’t believe in Him. And, in Mark 6:6 it says,

“Jesus marveled at their unbelief.”

He marveled at their unbelief.

I want to share a good example of this. This is from Dr. Thomas Nagle. He’s a professor of philosophy at NYU.  He says,

“In speaking of the fear of religion, I don’t mean to refer to the entirely reasonable hostility toward certain established religions, in virtue of their objectionable moral doctrines, social policies, and political influence. Nor am I referring to the association of many religious beliefs with superstition and the acceptance of evident empirical falsehoods. I’m talking about something much deeper, namely, the fear of religion itself. I want atheism to be true and am made very uneasy by the fact that some of the most intelligent and well-informed people I know are religious believers. It isn’t that I don’t believe in God and naturally hope there is no God. I don’t want there to be a God! I don’t want the universe to be like that.”

It’s almost like he’s saying it may be that way, but that’s not the way I want it.

Notice, Paul says, “They suppressed the truth in unrighteousness.”

CS Lewis says what first attracted him to atheism,

“I could gratify my wishes. I realized I didn’t want to divide authority to interfere with my life. So, I was attracted to atheism.”

I don’t know how many of you are familiar with Lee Strobel.  If you’re not, he’s written some wonderful books. And, in fact, today he’s a minister. But, he’s very well-educated. He’s a lawyer, graduated from Yale Law School. He was head of the legal affairs department at the Chicago Tribune.  Do you know how he describes himself? He says,

“I would have described myself as a decadent atheist.”

Not just an atheist, a decadent atheist. He said,

“My wife was too. Until she came home one day and told me that she had become a Christian. I almost fell on the floor, but I didn’t believe that it really had changed her.”

But, as time went by, he noticed that God was doing a work in her life. And, so, if you know anything about him, he began in a quest. Really, the intent was to prove to his wife what a fool she was. And, so, he flew all over the country interviewing all of these scholars on all of these issues. And he said,

“One day, after a year or two, the unthinkable took place. I began to realize that all of this stuff was true.”

Then, he became a Christian. And, he says,

“Looking back, I latched on to a naturalistic world view as an excuse to jettison the idea of God so I could unabashedly pursue my own agenda in life without moral constraints.”

Suppressing the truth in unrighteousness.

One other quick story and then I’ll get to the fourth and final. This is a powerful story, guys. It’s a true story. A number of years ago, the John Templeton Foundation had a contest, wanting people to write essays on the power of purpose. The essay that won was by a gentleman by the name of August Turak, I don’t know anything about him. But, he wrote this really, really fine essay. In it, he talks about a retreat that he has where he goes to a monastery and spends time just, kind of, getting away from the frenetic life that he was living. And, he said at this particular monastery, he had a mentor, whose name was Father Christian. He said,

“Father Christian was 88-years old. He was fluent in French and Latin. He spoke some Greek. He had three Ph.D.’s in philosophy and theology.” And, Turek talks about going to Father Christian with an issue to discuss, a problem that he had, a predicament that he was in. And, he said, “I shared it with him and I sat back. Father Christian seemed to ignore my predicament.”

And, then he launched into a story about a minister having a crisis of faith and was leaving the ministry. The man was a friend of his, and Christian took his crisis so seriously that he actually left the monastery and traveled to this man’s house in order to do what he could. The two men spent countless hours in fruitless theological debate. Finally, dropping his voice, Father Christian looked the man steadily in the face and said, “Bob, is everything all right in your life?”The minister said everything was fine.

But the minister’s wife called Father Christian a few days later. She had overheard Christian’s question and her husband’s answer. And, she told Father Christian that the minister was having an affair and was leaving her, as well as his ministry. Father Christian fairly spat with disgust.

“I was wasting my time. Bob’s problem was that he couldn’t take the contradiction between his preaching and his living. So, God gets the boot. Remember this. All philosophical problems are, at heart, moral problems. It all comes down to how you intend to live your life.”

I’m going to read that again. All philosophical problems are, at heart, moral problems. It all comes down to how you intend to live your life.

You know, there’s a final way that we can respond to the truth. It’s found in Jesus’ words to Pilate, in John 18. He and Pilate are talking and Jesus isn’t saying much. But when He finally speaks, He says, because Pilate asks him,

“Are you a king? Because they are saying you are a king.”

Jesus answered,

“My kingdom is not of this world. If my kingdom were of this world, then My servants would be fighting so that I would not be handed over to the Jews. But, as it is, My kingdom is not of this realm. Therefore, Pilate said to Him, “So you are a king?” Jesus answered, “You say correctly that I am a king. For this, I have been born and for this, I have come into the world to testify to the truth.” And, then He says this, “Everyone who is of the truth hears My voice.”

You are of the truth. What does that mean? The Amplified says,

“He who is a friend of the truth, who belongs to the truth, who loves the truth, will hear My voice.”

In 2 Thessalonians 2:10, Paul speaks of all these people. He says,

“Unfortunately, they will spiritually perish. Why? Because they did not have a love of the truth so that they could be saved.”

Do we love the truth? Do we embrace the truth? Do we follow the truth?

If you read any of C.S. Lewis’ biographers, one of the reasons they believe he was such an exceptional man, and such an exceptional thinker was because his underlying philosophy of life was to follow the truth wherever it leads you.
And, if any of you read about Anthony Flew, the most notorious and famous, and most antagonistic atheist in the 20th Century, stunned the world when he admitted he changed his mind. He now believes in God, even though he’s not sure at this moment which one he believes. He says,

“Christianity seems to be the most reasonable.”

I’m not sure where he is in the journey. But he was interviewed by ABC News, and they asked him,

“How did you change your mind?”

And, Flew said,

“I followed the philosophy I followed all of my life, and that is to follow the truth wherever it leads.”

And, if you think about it, isn’t this what Jack Welch said?

“Look the truth in the eye and act upon it with as much speed as you can.” He says, “This is the key if you want to be a healthy, vibrant, and dynamic person.”

I want to wrap this up with just a couple concluding thoughts and then we’ll be done.
Lyle Dorsett, who many of you may be familiar with. He lives here in Birmingham, now, wrote a book on the spiritual life of C.S. Lewis. And, in the book, he says, you know, Lewis had a foundational belief that

“Scripture is the place where we hear God’s voice most clearly and definitively. It’s where we receive divine guidance. It’s how God speaks truth into our lives.”

And, Lewis believed that God speaking to us through the Scripture is how we experience personal transformation. It’s how we become healthy people. It’s as Jesus says,

“My word is truth.”

And, I share this with you because back in the 1980s, I had a guy that mentored me spiritually, and he was trying to teach me how to listen to God through the Scriptures. And, during this time, I came to realize something and I shared it with him. I admitted it. I said,

“You know, I’m not sure I really want to know what God has to truly say to me.”

Isn’t that interesting? I was telling him I’m kind of afraid of the truth! I mean, I liked my life! I was afraid He might tell me something that He might want to change! And, looking back, I realize I didn’t really trust God and His goodness. I didn’t trust His will for my life. And, you know what has really changed me and changed my viewpoint, to the point I truly yearn to hear from him? It is when I realized that when I had surrendered my life to Christ, back in 1974, that at that moment, I had been adopted into His family. I became His child, and He was my Heavenly Father. He wasn’t a drill sergeant. He wasn’t like a cop. He was like a Heavenly Father who wanted to teach and speak into my life. And, that’s what all fathers desire to do with their children if they love them. And, for that reason, I really do, I long to hear for what He has to say to me, as my Heavenly Father. As I seek His leadership and guidance in my life.

You know, in John 5, Jesus is in Jerusalem. He encounters a crippled man and He asks him a very unusual question. He asks him,

“Do you want to get well?”

Unusual. Crippled man. Do you want to get well?

Then, as I look around this morning, I don’t know what kind of physical disabilities we have, probably not a whole lot. But we’re all crippled. We are. And, Jesus is asking each of us,

“Do you want to get well? Do you want to be healthy?”

Guys, it starts, I really believe, by loving the truth and following it. It means you will confront and run toward your problems, not away from them, particularly your relational problems. You see, healthy people deal with the logs in their lives instead of always worrying and pointing out the specs in the eyes of others. And, I would go back to what Lewis said because I really believe this is true. Over the years, I have seen a number of Christian men, whose lives have truly been transformed, where their lives really come together, and you see a real strength in their inner life. And, guys, without exception, these men’s lives were grounded in the word of God. Without exception.

And, finally, and I don’t know about you. I was really blessed last week by Drayton’s words when he talked about obedience. Obedience is not following a bunch of rules and laws. He says obedience is seeking to align our wills with God’s will. And, he contends, along with many others, that this is the hidden key to happiness. But I would like to add this; I believe this is also the key to being a healthy man.

Let me pray.

Lord, we thank You for the truth that you’ve given us, that we don’t walk through this life not knowing what’s going on in a fog, but that You give us truth. You give us solid rock to build our lives on. Lord, I pray that You would make us to be lovers of the truth, and that we would follow it wherever it leads. And, that whatever problems or issues we have in our lives, we wouldn’t run from them, we’d run to them. We’d look reality in the eye and act with as much speed as we could. Help us to be men, Lord, who are healthy, who are strong. But we realize that we are weak, we’re needy. And, so, we thank You, that as Your children we have a Heavenly Father who loves us and speaks into our lives. We do thank You. In Jesus’ name. Amen.

Richard E Simmons III is the founder and Executive Director of The Center for Executive Leadership and a best-selling author.