Micah 6:8 He hath shewed thee, O man, what is good; and what doth the Lord require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God?

It that too much to ask?

I could stop right there and let that sink in. I could but if all of us agree this not too much to ask, what went wrong?

Perhaps it begins with what you see. God has shown what is good. Do you see it? If your answer is yes, great, get on with the response. If no, what are you seeing?

Psalm 27:13 I had fainted, unless I had believed to see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living.

Fainting, falling down, failing, begins with the key element of belief. Who you believe and what you believe frames your insight, your vision, your ability to see God at work in your life and the life of others.

If all you see is pain, misery, injustice then you will not see the way to end it.

Proverbs 14:12 There is a way which seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death.

What happens when man cannot see God’s good?

Psalm 10:11 He hath said in his heart, God hath forgotten: he hideth his face; he will never see it.

In the midst of your pain and misery, can you see good? No? Where are you looking?

Psalm 121:1,8 I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my help.  The Lord shall preserve thy going out and thy coming in from this time forth, and even for evermore.

You have to believe it to see it.

“This above all: to thine own self be true and it must follow, as the night the day thou canst not then be false to any man.” Polonias, Hamlet, Shakespeare

I don’t know about you but I had the true meaning of this wrong for years. In context to the play, the times and the author, it offered multiple possibilities by design. So it was for me that I too believe as many that it meant to be true to you nature, and do not be someone you are not.

This morning as I pondered my life experiences in context to that belief I discovered I had no idea who I was as a boy, a young man or an adult. It is rather difficult to be true to self when you do not even know yourself.

What I discovered is the only truth that fits all mankind in context to the play, our identities and our experiences. It is this, do not lie to yourself. There is no greater danger in life than to entertain the father of lies in the whispers that fill your head and heart as to your true identity.

Psalms 25:8, 32:8 Good and upright is the Lord: therefore will he teach sinners in the way. I will instruct thee and teach thee in the way which thou shalt go: I will guide thee with mine eye.

Key to the understanding of not lying to yourself are those last words; I will guide thee with mine eye. Seeing yourself as God sees you rather than listening to the whisperer.

If you repeat a lie enough, you will begin to believe it. If you believe it, you will act on it. Often I have discovered that what God says about us does not match our actions. If God does not change and in Him there is no variance, then how can what we think change what God has said? It cannot and does not.