The word "truth" means reality. Thayer's Greek Dictionary says: "Truth is reality. The underlying essence of a matter that is the basis of and agrees with the appearance."

How much of your life's energy is spent resisting reality? Do you spend vast amounts of time and energy laboring to make this life predictable? How much of your time do you spend in vain efforts to have what you can only have in heaven?

Dan Allender writes in his book Bold Love: "What most of us spend the energy of our lives warring against is reality- the fact that life is awful and the truth that this world is not our home."

If you truly accepted that you are an alien sent here to redeem everything under the sun for the glory of our Lord, and that this plane was not meant to be your home, what would change in your experience? If you truly knew that there was a place where you fit perfectly and that you were going to be completely taken care of when you returned, how would you relate to people you meet today?"

How much energy do you spend trying to get people to be who you need them to be before you give yourself to them or receive what they have to say? Are your relationships burdened with arguments of how people are never enough for you? Or, how you are not going to give yourself until they change? Do you find yourself wondering why, sooner or later, every one of your relationships seems to be a burden?

"The only place outside of Heaven where you can be perfectly safe from all the dangers and perturbations of love is Hell."

How often do you find yourself saying, "I am not going to get too involved with this person, it will only lead to heartache?"

Has your life become a process of trying to justify a philosophy that the only way to make it in this life is to keep yourself from trusting?

What truth could possibly set you free for the despair that people often feel when they realize that the person or people they love are different from what they imagined them to be? What kind of hope can come when you realize that no one can really be trusted all of the time? What reality (truth) will set you free to love people from who they are, without the need to change them into someone you need them to be?

C. S. Lewis says, "Love anything and your heart will certainly be wrung and possible be broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even an animal. Wrap it carefully around with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket - safe, dark, motionless, airless- it will change.

"It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable irredeemable. The alternative to tragedy is damnation. The only place outside of Heaven where you can be perfectly safe from all the dangers and perturbations of love is Hell."

So the one thing you can trust if you are going to love is that people will betray you. Knowing this can set you free from trying to stop the inevitable by controlling the people and situations of your life. Think of all the energy that will be available to focus on forgiving.

The question can change from how do I protect myself from pain and suffering; to how will pain and suffering help form my character?

For information on Dan Tocchini's "Break Through" seminars (breaking through the barriers to loving God, yourself and others) Click Here