The "True" and "The Truth"

Truth - Library of Congress, Thomas Jefferson Building

 I attended a class taught by Ronald Bartholomew at BYU's Education Week.  Among the many insightful ideas he presented on the atonement was an interesting observation that Satan, the adversary, often uses "the true" to divert us from "the truth." 

Some examples:

Bodies:

The truth is that we have come to earth to get a body in this stage of our eternal progression.  Our body will one day be perfected and resurrected.  Our body is a gift from God and a temple in which our spirit resides.  Though not perfect here in mortality, one day our body will be perfected.  In the meantime it is a wonderful, useful tool to aid us in our eternal progression and our experience here in mortality. 

True statements about our body might be that it is too short, tall, thin, fat, ugly and not at all like the air-brushed version in the magazines.  These "true" statements can mask "the truth" about our bodies and focus us on spending too much time, effort, thought and money in achieving the "perfect" body in a temporal sense and in the process we forget why we are here and why we have a body.

Children:

The truth about children is that they are an heritage of the Lord.  Having children allows us to participate with God in providing bodies for his spirit children.  Children will ultimately bring us the greatest happiness and joy both here in this life and in the eternities.  Careers and other temporal achievements have their end but the family unit is eternal.  People, especially family are what life is about.  Children help us grow. 

True statements about children are that they come as babies and babies cry.  They keep you up at night.  You have to change their diapers and wipe up spit-up.  They are exhausting.  They tie you down.  Having a baby changes your body (often not in desirable ways!)  They grow up to be teenagers.  If you have more than one they fight with each other.  They are expensive! All of these statements are a version of reality and if we focus on them we may choose to not participate or limit our participation in the parenting process and forfeit the inexplicable joy that comes from having children. 

Marriage:

The truth:  Marriage is ordained of God.  One of the purposes of this life or the next is to seek an eternal companion and to develop the qualities of a loving spouse.  There is joy in the marriage relationship.  Through marriage we learn unselfishness, sacrifice, charity, forgiveness, repentance.  Marriage is the best laboratory for gospel living.  We can grow together in a companionship in ways we could never do alone. Marriage is affirming and fulfilling in the long-range perspective.

It is true that it can be hard living with another person unlike yourself.  Marriage ties you down to obligations.  Marriage requires putting your own needs aside.  Men can be louts.  Women can be nags.  Marriage is responsibility.  Single people are still having fun and you, the married person, are not!  Marriage is expensive.  Marriage can interfere with careers.  Many people get divorced.  Some people are miserable in their marriages.

Perspective can make all the difference and focusing on the eternal truths about marriage can lift us up, get us through and encourage us to make the hard choices to be a trusted marriage partner upon whom our spouse can rely.  Becoming fixated on the negative, though true, aspects of marriage is like putting a pebble up to your eye so that you no longer see the big picture and the beautiful vistas on the horizons. 

There are other applications.  What is "the truth" about an individual, a church leader, a neighbor, our job, our nation.  True is often used in adversarial ways to manipulate thinking or action.  We need to stay focused on the big picture "truth."  Interesting idea to think about.