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To often, I feel that people hide their true thoughts behind a façade of happiness. Myself, I'm the opposite. I tend to let my feelings be known. Whatever it is that I'm pondering in my head, I feel the need to compose it to a symphony of words and then perform a recital of the work. This has produced mixed reactions from death threats¹ to expressions of appreciation.

So, honesty and the truth go hand in hand; honesty is telling the truth. However, the truth seems to have a wide range on the spectrum. One common proverb in the English language is “The truth hurts.”. William Blake once said, “A truth that's told with bad intent beats all the lies you can invent.”. On the other side, good things have been said of the truth. The Lord himself referred to Himself as the Truth.² In another instance in the Bible, we're called to think of things which are true.³

Despite the good attributes of the truth, there's still truth to the bad as well: the truth can hurt. People realise this — nice people who don't want to be mean. Then, the truth might be expressed in “euphemistic language”. I don't see the advantage to utilising the euphemisms; it introduces ambiguity.⁴ It seems more advantageous to be bluntly honest. As long as our intent in being honest is not derived from malice or a desire to hurt, honesty is the best policy. We should keep this in mind when we are being honest… and when people are being honest with us.

I've said before that “you have everything to gain and nothing to lose by being honest”. It works on the receiving end too: you have nothing to gain and everything to lose by fearing the truth. Your honesty is appreciated.

1. Two and counting!
2. John 14:6
3. Philippians 4:8
4. “Was she trying to say that she wasn't interested or does she really have to wash her hair that night?”