Optimize your strength: Truth is above all things

Bienhome Muivah *

Truth is a strength available to all people. Knowing the truth of your own strength will help you advance faster than knowing facts about your weaknesses. Facts describe the events that take place between people, but truth describes the motives and intent of the heart during the action. WISE FACT instructors have learned that knowing the truth concerning someone’s intentions will advance a relationship faster than knowing facts that describe what someone did.

Truth has the power to free you from disappointments and frustrations. Whenever you begin to feel discouraged, take time to ask yourself, "What is the truth in this situation?" Perhaps, for example, you did not get invited to participate in something. When you determine the truth, you may discover that even if you had been asked, you honestly would have preferred having your time free for something else. Perhaps, the truth was that it was only an oversight that your name was excluded. God has promised that truth is always a safe shelter in which we are free to enjoy His greater plan for us as we learn to trust Him.

One cannot be a FACT instructor without committing to some of the principles associated with truth, for any instruction developed and administered without truth will end in failure for both the student and the instructor.

Truth is accuracy. Verbs are the purest of all words in the English language.

They take you closer to the real you than any other words can.

What kind of verb are you?

Don’t apply adverbs to modify or evaluate your descriptive verbs. In this phase of identifying your love for yourself, you do need to be distracted by personal opinions and judgments of how you perform these verbs. Judgment does not say what you are; it says what is good or bad, right or wrong about what you are. Verb, on the other hand, are tools of description. They enable you to define your true feelings and observations about your behavior and physical image.

No one can expect more from you than the truth because Truth is reality. And once you have shared the truth about how you want to be loved and respected, you stand in the bright light of ‘self-love reality’. Self-Love reality is a perception of what it is that you love and respect about yourself, separate from any interpretations given to you by others or any evaluative language you used to think about yourself in the process.

You may find it difficult at first to have a Self-Love reality because so much of our self-love perception is based on evaluations that others have expressed towards us. Very little of what we think is lovable about ourselves comes from our own non-judgmental voice. When we talk about our lovable qualities, we often relate in either descriptive adjectives or with modifying adverbs to explain how well or poorly we did something. Neither adjectives nor adverbs describe our inner essence, which is that human being who exists when no one else is watching and when we have stopped performing just to please others.

Jesus was once challenged on the laws of God by religious leaders of His time. Jesus’ response to them confirmed this necessary act of Self-Love.

35. One of them, an expert in the law, tested him with this question: 36. "Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?"37. Jesus replies: "Love the Lord your God with all your mind. 38. This is the first and greatest commandment. 39. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ 40. All the Law and the Prophet hang on these two commandments" (Mt. 22:35-40).

It is not egoistical to love yourself. In fact, it is one of the two greatest commandments from God. We must love ourselves before we can truly love others. Once we know how to be good to ourselves, we understand how to be good to others. This self-love reality is vital to the growth of healthy relationships.

The fact is many could not identify with the use of verbs. They did not have the ability to think about themselves in a clear, descriptive manner that is available through the use of verbs. They were better equipped to describe their external image with adjectives than to explain their internal essence with verbs.

Above all, remember that no one can teach others how to respect you better than you can.

Friends, optimize your strength by walking and living in truth because truth has the power to set you free!

Glorious Sunday to all the readers!