Dancing

I have been trying to pinpoint the moment in time when I learned to dance around the truth, that place where I lost confidence in my ability to speak the truth. There was a time when I had no problem speaking....giving my thoughts or opinions...even when I was wrong...but now, I can't seem to get it out even when I am right!

My husband and I have had this conversation a few times now, and he goes back to an incident with our sister-in-law a few years back. I thought we had freedom to speak and be who we are, and that was turned around and manipulated. Everything we said was turned into a lie to be used against us. There was absolutely no truth in any part of that situation: the result-a lost relationship with a brother, no opportunity for us to watch our neices to grow up, and broken relationships with other family members. Nothing but brokeness is left in this wake of manipulation and deception. Even worse, our son bought into it and this idea that somehow parents no longer have a right to say anything to their children when their children aren't walking in truth. We are supposed to sit by and watch them dive off into an abyss of darkness and destruction, all under some idea that they are "adults now." We no longer have any freedom to disagree with our childrens' choices and vocalize that, because they are "adults." All these years invested in them training them to live in Christ-gone-poof...just like that. All the years they came to us with questions, with conflicts...not a thing has changed on our end...actually we are more Spiritually sound than we were...have more answers than we did...and more tools to resolve conflicts.

Where on earth did someone get the crazy idea that being a "majic age" makes you an adult-suddenly able to do whatever your mind can conceive! How can a perfectly compliant child who has submitted to authority, studies and memorized the Scriptures, knows the truth of God's Word, suddenly think that just because they are an "adult" nothing applies??? How can God's Word be truth and authority one day, and not another? Where in our culture did it happen that drinking is wrong....unless you are legal? Where did it become ok to have sexual relationships as long as you are a consenting "adult"? I stand back, ponder all of that, and am absolutely blown away...and then I look at the situations in our nation, our communities, our families,

...and it is no wonder-no one wants to take a stand for what is true...we all want to dance around it. Sure you can make your own decisions. Sure you can live a life of sin. Hey...so can I, but why would I want to when my Heavenly Father knows so much more than I do! It makes me think of the Israelites when they were under the judges...over and over they "did that which was right in their eyes." What a difference it is to do that which is right in our eyes as opposed to that which is right in God's eyes. There is only one truth, there is only one way, there is only one life I want to live...in Jesus. How do I get that truth to stick in not only my life, but in the lives I touch? How do I speak the truth without fear? How can I love people and not condone the choices they are making? How can God possibly use me when I keep wanting to dance?