Truth

TRUTH

“Guide me in your truth and teach me, for you are God my Savior, and my hope is in you all day long” – Psalm 25:5

In one of my Religious Study classes at the age of Seventeen we were learning about the existence and nature of God. I remember my thought process during that class. I wondered why all the these prominent philosophers devoted their lifetime searching and discovering who God is; building and criticizing the various theories they each came up with. There were numerous opinions as to whether God existed and even though based on my religious background at the time, I had an idea that perhaps God did exist, and I couldn’t help but question my own beliefs. In those days I had asked what is the truth? If there are so many different churches and denominations and so many different beliefs, what then is the truth? Am I in it? How do I get to it? Being an infinitely merciful God, He specifically answered me. He said, “I am the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me” -John 14:6. I had seen this answer and this truth so many times in flyers and in church bulletins and souvenirs given at Church events but I never took out the time to dig for it.

Perhaps then, if I had dug a little deeper I would have come to find out what Jesus meant by that. I would have found out that Jesus had prayed that I may be ‘sanctified’ with the truth and that God’s ‘word is the truth’ John 17:17. Truth means factual and if translated into the Greek definition, truth means reality. God’s word is the truth. Winston Churchill once said, “The truth is incontrovertible, Malice may attack it, ignorance may deride it, but in the end, there it is”. As simple as God has made his truth known, I like the world had strayed from it and ran away from it. And for this reason searched through opinions and focused on ignorance and imaginations. But God a merciful Father continues to lead us to Him, the truth (Isaiah 65:1-2) regardless of the world’s blindness.

I was blind to the truth. I grew up in a little town in the Eastern part of Nigeria. When I was young, I remember being a part of the religious division. My family is Catholic. In my little town there were only two main churches, the Catholic Church and the Anglican, right by each other. I was always curious to know what went by the other church but it became rooted in me that it was a ‘bad church’. Growing up in the Catholic home, I was taught only about how to pray my rosary and the doctrines of the Catholic Church not the Bible. Sadly, I did not know who Jesus was until I was six years old. I remember my mom first showed me the bible at eight. She asked me “who is Jesus” and I had told her, “I don’t know who that is, I only know Mary”. She introduced me to the Bible, I remember having to memorize Psalm 119 and Psalm 23. But as I later came to find out, knowing some Psalms did not equal knowing the truth.

I guess in a lot of ways I searched for the truth. In Nigeria, there are various versions of the truth. From the age of ten, I started searching for the truth, going to different churches. From a Pentecostal, Anglican to ‘white garment’ to Sabbathtrian Churches. It just did not add up. Either their doctrines were not matching to their lives or their lives were not matching to their doctrines. ( 1 Timothy 4:16)

When I read the bible, it was confusing, it did not make sense to me that such ‘high’ biblical standards could ever be met. I turned away at some point, I gave into my emotions and created for myself a worldly idealism, and ‘I can only do my best’ I had thought. But eventually, God broke me and allowed me to face His reality, the truth. A few weeks prior to coming to the Truth of Christ, I had cried so many times asking for Him to draw me closer to Him, even when I fasted and prayed, I knew I was still not living in truth. But as I sought after God, He guided me to His truth and indeed when His truth was revealed to me through bible studies and the true call to live according to the standards of the bible, I knew it, I felt it, I have been set free (John 8:32).

The move from spiritual blindness to light was very apparent to me because it was God’s reality. In God’s truth, I became a different person; I no longer searched because I have found comfort in my Savior. As C.S Lewis put it: “If you look for truth, you may find comfort in the end if you look for comfort you will not get either comfort or truth only soft soap and wishful thinking to begin and in the end despair”. I live each day now, grateful that I am in the light, (John 8:12), discovering, learning and dwelling with God.

“Send forth your light and your truth, let them guide me; let them bring me to your holy mountain, to the place where you dwell” Psalm 43:3. I pray that I may remain in God’s truth, His ultimate reality for me. “Truth is like the sun you can shut it out for a time, but it aint going away” (Elvis Presley). Even though Satan is leading the world astray (Revelation 12:9) from the truth, I strive to ensure that like I was, those who are searching, may find the truth and continue to walk in it as I do daily.

Kate Awara