Food for Thought

I've been really convicted lately about honesty and transparency. And the guy who started me thinking about it all posted this question on his blog over the weekend:

What I'm wondering is how honest do you want people to be? If your pastor is steaming mad one night, venting to his wife about what some jerk at the church said, do you want him to tweet about it? Do you want to know? And if you don't, is it because that wouldn't be wise, or because you want to think your pastor is somebody he isn't?

It's the last question that got me. Do we censor our honest thoughts and reactions because we just want to appear holy (or at least holier than the person who just made us angry)? Are we giving people a true representation of ourselves?

I think that a filter is necessary in some situations - if we didn't restrain ourselves during critical moments, our testimonies could be ruined with one thoughtless sentence.

But sometimes, are we and the people we admire in our churches and lives practicing a fake turn-the-other-cheek mentality, a false version of who we really are, of who God made us to be? And if we are, are we doing almost as much damage to the testimony that God wants us to live out as we would by speaking out of turn?

Yep. More tension.