The Truth Hurts

Why does "the truth hurt?"

Actually, that phrase is shorthand for the truth it is elucidating, which stated fully is: "The truth hurts worst when it first hits you." Which is to say that there are a great deal of truths with which we live in complete, comfortable harmony, even though many of those truths hurt us when we first learned them.

Gravity is a painful truth to the newbie on a bicycle.

A hangover is a painful truth to the college freshman.

Hot peppers reveal their painful truth the first time you encounter one unexpectedly in a mouthful of authentic Thai food.

I am completely comfortable with these truths now, although they each were quite humbling when they were first delivered fresh and piping hot to my door in thirty minutes or less. And this raises an interesting distinction. The EXPERIENCE of these things-- falling off a bike, waking up after binge drinking, or eating spicy food--may remain painful whenever they occur, but the TRUTH ITSELF behind them isn't painful at all. I am perfectly reconciled to these truths, even if I'd rather now avoid their consequences.

So what is the common medicine that truth delivers each time it hurts?

It seems to me that truth hurts precisely because it brings us an unexpected gift: the reality that we have something more to learn that by nature can only be learned through pain.

This is not to say that all truths are delivered painfully. The bliss of a first kiss is an experience that is not painful at all and from which we learn how enjoyable kissing is (and to which we return again and again throughout life.)

But mere kissing is a circular truth. The only truth that a meaningless kiss delivers is that kissing is, by itself, enjoyable. But no kiss is a mere kiss, and thus no kiss can remain ultimately meaningless.

When you discover that you were kissed merely to make another suitor jealous is the moment that a painful truth hits you about human nature and, specifically, the nature of the relationship you actually had with that girl as contrasted with the one you thought you had. The kiss of a traitor--of Judas' lips upon Jesus--that is indeed a painful truth.

The realization that there is more to a relationship than kissing is a less painful truth, but painful in its own right.

-+-+-+-

Here is the most painful thing a person can realize: I am not who I thought I was. And second only to that is: What other people think of me is not what I had been counting on them thinking.

And here is the painful lesson a pastor must learn over and over again: What I've been trying to say is not what people have necessarily been hearing.

The latter is painful news on its own, but it is actually good news in light of the first two truths mentioned just before.

That is, when we realize that what we have been trying to say is not necessarily what people have been hearing, we can be relieved, because we're not who we thought we were anyway, and our audience hasn't exactly been seeing us with the aid of our built-in, personally-preferential, rose-colored glasses.

Which is a long and convoluted way of saying, "It's awfully good to discover you're in the Grace Business, when you realize how much Grace you actually need."

Do you get my point? Or am I about to learn another painful lesson...