NOTES for Pro 21:3-21

To uphold truth means not only not to deceive, not to hide, not to act hypocritically, not to flatter. It also means not to hide ourselves. Very often we hide our sins and our feelings from people and from ourselves. To uphold truth means to stand before people and before Christ. Not to try to hide our face behind a mask of self-justification.

This is hard. It is almost impossible if we are aggressive. If we expect people's judgment and fear it. Our turtle-like ability to hide in our shell makes us constantly expect judgment and accusation. We close ourselves off from mercy. We do not surrender, like criminals who are sure their guilt will not be proven. That is why there is the feeling of being constantly cornered, the constant fear with which it is impossible to live and from which we lock ourselves into depression. Because of it, we also constantly accuse everyone and everything around us.

The mercy we are called to practice is the ability to see other people worn down by fear of condemnation, fear that their real self will be exposed. It is the ability to receive people without distorting real feelings and relationships by this fear. Fear of human warmth. Fear of someone else's love, attention, and patience, which we think we do not need.

We agree to distance ourselves from all that is best in people, driving ourselves into a far and cold corner of the universe. There, it seems to us, the light of Christ, the light of His love that illumines people, will not reach us and will not make us suffer from shame and our own smallness. But when, through the pain of having the mask of deceit torn from us, we gain the whole world, then we gain life, the truth about ourselves, the image of Christ in every person, and the glory of those who have overcome sin and despair.