During an intense scene from the legal drama A Few Good Men, an attorney hammers at a witness who happens to be a hardened Marine colonel. The attorney pushes and prods and delivers the line, I want the truth! The colonel thunders back, You can’t handle the truth!

I act the same way with God. I’m afraid to share what’s really driving my thoughts, my frustrations, my fears and my desires. I’m not the attorney asking for truth, I’m that bottled-up colonel refusing to answer. I’m afraid God cannot handle the truth.

How ludicrous, yet how human. Adam and Eve hid from God after eating forbidden fruit. They feared God couldn’t handle the truth. In the same spirit I cover up my wrong-doings and failings from the Lord.

King David wrote: For God alone, O my soul, wait in silence, for my hope is from him...Trust in him at all times, O people; pour out your heart before him; God is a refuge for us.

David hid again and again, yet returned again and again. David poured out his heart, at one time lying in his face for days praying for his infant son with Bathsheba to live. Despite the boy’s death, David still made God his refuge. Surrounded by people always jockeying for position, his heart awakened to the steadiness of the Lord. David learned that he could tell God anything, and so he did.

You and I can tell God anything as well. Share your frustrations, angers, fears, mistakes and embarrassments. Seek forgiveness, even for those things you feel are unforgivable. Lay out your case. God can handle the truth.

Psalm 62:5-8

Photo by Rémy Penet