The Result Of Truth Is Freedom

Excerpt from Let Food be Thy Gift

The Result Of Truth Is Freedom

We are designed to be so much more than who we pretend to be. We are not what we buy. We are not we what we own, project or post. We are not our lifestyles, political stances, religions or socioeconomic levels. We are not what we eat or how we work out. We are not our jobs, hobbies, addictions, successes or failures.

Beneath the posturing, peacocking, protesting, pretending and posting, we are so much less but infinitely so much more than anything we do, say or believe. Can we all stop for a minute, take a deep breath and remind ourselves that every single one of us are human beings? We are givers and receivers of life, love, and truth. We are creators, builders, growers, and dreamers. Inside of every one of us lives an infinite source of hope, joy, peace, goodness, patience, gentleness, faithfulness, self-control, courage, kindness, truth and faith. When we dig a little deeper, we discover that we all share the very same human design and we are vulnerable, sensitive, healthy, fragile, needy, weak, transparent, desperate and dependent on love and truth to become the people we are designed to be.

But we are never going to become the people we are designed to be by submerging ourselves into other people’s photos, post, opinions, and lifestyles. We are never going to find the love that we need to live the way we are designed through our phones. There’s no doubt that the internet offers us endless opportunities to connect and we are designed to need to be known and accepted to grow and flourish, but an online connection is not the same as community.
We are designed to live, work, play, talk, listen and study in places that are full of real people that we can touch, smell, see and hear. We are designed to live in a community where we can practice receiving and giving honor and respect to our hearts, minds, bodies, truths, gifts and time. We need more than a platform to share our laughter, tears, fears, hopes, and dreams. We need real places where we can give our whole human being selves to others. By living out of our human being design, we can rediscover the truth about what really is good, beautiful, excellent and true. We can remember that vulnerability is not posting a makeup-free selfie but being able to live a life that is full of mystery, risk, fear, hurts, and messiness. Vulnerability is not something we do, it is who we are when we are being our true selves.

If we don’t know who we are and how we are designed, then we will continue to look for life and love in places where we are forced to disconnect our real person from our truth, talents, time and presence. We cannot possibly fit our whole person in a tweet, post or pic-and without the ability to be present, we will be disconnected from the love that lives within us and is unleashed in real time and in real relationships. There is Power in Presence and we desperately need people who are willing to put their phones down and be vulnerable, sensitive, weak, needy, transparent, fragile, desperate and dependent on love and truth that only flows through real living, breathing, messy, smelly, truthful and imperfect people.

In other words, I need you and you need me to become the people we are designed to be and to experience and enjoy lives that are full of so much more than our likes and dislikes. We are human beings and we have a human being design that naturally creates a place for us to find ourselves and lose ourselves, to be filled up and emptied out, to be forgiven and justified, to be sad and happy, to be right and wrong, and to be more of who we are and less of who we are not.

Only by remembering who we are and how we are designed to simultaneously be healthy, whole, holy and human can we create the space to receive and give the gifts that nourish us at our deepest levels as individuals and as a community.