Editorial June 1, 2015 Issue

Honesty and Christian healing

Barbara Vining

Honesty is imperative in every avenue of human life, and each person is responsible for keeping herself or himself honest (something anyone can do with God’s help). But here’s the rub: Prideful elements in the human mind can distract a person from tending to one’s own honesty and, instead, cause one to be critical of others, or claim for oneself things that are not true. Sadly, from time to time we see the unfortunate results of this kind of dishonesty highlighted in news reports regarding prominent public figures. But it is our own honesty we must attend to, so we need to be watchful that we don’t shift our attention—even for a moment—in the dishonest direction of personal pride or hypocritical criticism.

If you have just now thought with a little embarrassment, “Oh, my, I think I may have a tendency to do that”—and have had a little laugh at yourself—you’re not alone, and you are already on the right track.

Dishonesty stands in the way of success; and this is especially true in the practice of Christian healing. So, how can we extract pride and criticism from our own thought so we don’t think, speak, or act dishonestly or hypocritically? Well, we can’t do it by allowing our judgments to rest on a superficial view of ourselves or others as fallible (or supposedly infallible) human personalities. We can do it, however, by humbly adopting the spiritual practice of being true to God and man in the way Christ Jesus lived and taught—and being honest with ourselves as to whether we are actually doing this or simply giving mental lip service to it.

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