The Whole Truth

I know what it’s like to be Ryan Braun. He is the Major League Baseball player that tested positive for performance enhancing drugs, got off on a technicality, then stood before the press and swore on his life he didn’t use them. He just got suspended for using performance enhancing drugs.

I know what it’s like to be Anthony Weiner. He is the New York City mayoral candidate that was involved in a sexting scandal last year. More of his addiction has come to light. More texts. More lies.

I’ve never looked into a camera and denied using performance enhancing drugs.

I’ve never had my phone records and internet history leaked to the press and been questioned about it.

My guess is you haven’t either.

I have looked at my wife and told her I didn’t struggle with pornography.

I have told the truth and given enough details to make me look accountable but not really be transparent.

I have met with an accountability partner and told him my marriage was doing great, just months before I confessed an affair.

I have sworn up and down that I don’t struggle with something only to have that struggle destroy my life and marriage.

We usually are most judgmental of the sins in others that we struggle with the most. So we shine bright lights on Ryan Braun and Anthony Weiner because they are liars. They deceived us. But the reality is all of us have withheld the whole truth.

We fear being seen as a failure. We are scared of not being loved. We are fearful of being rejected by those we love most, so we tell as much truth as we feel is safe for that relationship.

In our effort to save the relationship with partial truth, partial truth actually suffocates it a little at a time.

That is the hardest part of truth telling…telling the whole truth.

But it is the whole truth that sets us free.