Liar Liar

Remember Jim Carrey's movie Liar Liar? A man who customarily lies all the time suddenly loses the ability to lie at all ... not even a little white lie.

Stanley asks "What if it suddenly became impossible for you to cover up all the junk you normally hide from the rest of humanity?" What if all of my so-called baggage was visible to everyone I met? What if all of my thoughts were printed out like captions across my forehead? What if every secret I had were printed on my shirt?

If my thoughts were public, I would have to be much more careful about my secrets and my thought life. I would have to increase my personal censor to include every critical, petty, judgmental thought I had. Of course God knows my thoughts even though they are not made public to the world. God knows how mean spirited I can think. Lord, give me the discipline to censor my thoughts so that they reflect Christ's love.

As for my baggage, I would have to deal with the repercussions of my past mistakes - and offer explanations to people. Like most secrets, once my baggage was made public, it would probably not seem as large. I would likely be able to move on and put my baggage behind me. If I saw everyone else's baggage, I would hope that I could show them more grace, for I would understand them better. Perhaps I can simply assume that we all have baggage which leads to our current behavior and show grace anyway.

This post was inspired by the book It Came From Within by Andy Stanley.