Friends, we are in our last week of the worship series, “Recipe for Loving Relationships.” This week we will be discussing honesty. I invite you to take this short quiz from Gary Chapman’s book, Love As a Way of Life, to assess yourself in practicing honesty. As you take the quiz, consider your most common words and actions. As we take steps to grow in our life of love, it is important to realize where we are now.
One of the things we’ll look at is how individuals have different opinions about what constitutes lying. To find where you fall on this spectrum of opinion, answer the following questions on a scale from zero to five, zero being “never” and five being “usually.”
- Telling small lies to protect myself or other people is okay.
- It doesn’t matter if I believe what I say as long as I appear to believe it.
- If my boss knows everyone is stretching the rules a little, it’s all right if I do it too.
- I find it difficult to take a stand for what I believe because I don’t know for sure if I’m right.
- If I tell someone the truth and she gets upset, I just assume that’s her problem.
Count up your answers. If your score is five or less, you clearly have a desire to be a loving truth teller. If it’s higher, rethink the importance of truth. It’s surprising how significant honesty becomes when we are determined to love authentically.