Lions' Dens Survival Principles > Part 5

Don’t Be Afraid of the Truth:
Ultimately It Can Only Empower You

Daniel 2:19b-22 (NIV) “My lord, if only the dream applied to your enemies and its meaning to your adversaries!”

In the media world, vain praise is often the stock in trade. Comments like “I loved your latest film” and “You look wonderful, Dahling,” can become so commonly dispensed and so superficially motivated that, after a while, nobody really even expects that they might be true. The Jim Carrey movie, Liar, Liar, is built on the hilarious premise that a lawyer (it could easily have been a media professional) becomes strangely motivated to tell only the unvarnished truth. It’s funny because truth, in his world, is so uncommon! When truth and falsehood—even at the level of social intercourse— become interchangeable, everything literally goes to hell. This is so because truth is the language of heaven.

Daniel got caught in a situation in which truth could be really costly for him. He had been asked by Nebuchadnezzar to interpret a dream the king had had, one “none of the other wise men in the kingdom” could divine. The bad news was that the dream’s interpretation was devastating news for Nebuchadnezzar. It was a declaration that the kingdom would be stripped from him and that he would suffer a debilitating mental illness for seven full years! Not the kind of message one is eager to deliver to his totalitarian boss, especially a boss who has a reputation for severing heads from bodies at the slightest whim!

Daniel knew he had no alternative but to deal in complete, detailed truth with Nebuchadnezzar. No revisions or rewrites. No laundering. No sugar-coating. He did not fear truth nor the consequences of truth. He knew that, in the ultimate, grand scheme of things, truth always empowers a person. The one on the side of truth always wins in the end. The one on the side of falsehood is always and ultimately “found out” and “done in” by it. [Note: No examples from our own national discourse at this time are necessary.]

At the same time, Daniel was wise enough to know that truth constituted of heavy content didn’t need to have heavy delivery. Lest he become like the proverbial messenger who was killed because he brought news to the king of the army’s defeat, Daniel masterfully introduced and graciously delivered the truth his God had vouchsafed to him. Don’t you love that leading line, “My lord, if only the dream applied to your enemies and its meaning to your adversaries!”? The survival principle is, If the truth is heavy, deliver it lightly. If the truth is light, shout it from the rooftops! But, regardless, deliver the truth.

This principle applies equally to the expression of your faith. “All those without Christ end up in hell” must be delivered graciously and “lightly.” “God offers free forgiveness for all who come to Him” can be trumpeted in prime time a la Touched by an Angel.

The head of programming for a major cable channel discovered that, as other “yes men” executives fell out of favor with a boss known to be a tough manager, he gained favor. He did so by graciously, but candidly, always dealing in the truth. He didn’t do it to gain favor. He did it because his Christian commitment mandated that he live, think, and speak truth. Doing so has resulted in great empowerment for him. When the boss really wants to know what’s going on, or to get a well-motivated but objective appraisal of a program or project, he knows precisely the man to ask. He knows he won’t get an everybody-loves-the-show response unless—of all things—they actually love the show!

—Larry W. Poland, Ph.D

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