Fear Not

Truth's Protection

Chapter 56

January 1

Psalm 4:8

In peace I will lie down and sleep, for you alone, Lord, make me dwell in safety.

______________________________
Preface

The Hebrew word for 'truth' most often used in the bible is 'emet,' in the form contracted with 'aman.'

Aman' means to build up or support; to 'foster' as a parent or nurse. And this translates to mean 'faithful.'

'Emet' means 'stability,' 'certainty,' trustworthiness and faithful.

Truth is synonymous with faithfulness.

Being faithful means more than just holding a belief in something. It's something in which we cultivate, or build up inside of ourselves and in our relationships. We foster, or take care of it as a loving parent would their child. And we keep it healthy as a nurse would a patient. This demands focused, patient discipline. We stay consistent, stable and reliable at work, with our family, friends and significant other.

In this way we support truth and, in doing so, it culminates over time into a reputation that supports us. It takes care of us, providing opportunities for our needs and wants to be met. It garners respect while protecting us. And it keeps us and our relationships healthy.

It's the difference between our feelings toward someone on whom we know we can always rely and our feelings toward someone who more often than not promises one thing but then does another. Between the two, if trouble arises in their lives, whom would we be more inclined to support and help?

Truth or faithfulness, these being one and the same, is the building material for integrity.

In our relationships, we equate fidelity to faithfulness and love. And we deem infidelity as being unfaithful and not loving us.

When someone is unfaithful, we believe there's something wrong with them. We recognize unfaithfulness as a window through which it's revealed that the person we thought we knew has a character flaw. But unlike the flaws we deem as minor, unfaithfulness makes us think of the person as somehow dangerous, a threat to all that's dear to us.

Society often thinks of unfaithful people as being sociopathic.

What would being thought of in these ways do to their protection and support? If they do things that cause the people who love them to lose all trust in them, what are the unfaithful saying is more important to them?

This is one of the areas in life that reveals whether fear or faith weighs more heavily in a person.

Those predominated by faith find it difficult to understand why someone would risk so much for so little. For example, in the world of financial investments, good investors operate according to a rule that says to never risk losing more than you'd gain. They wonder why someone would violate this rule and risk losing everything.

In the Art of War we're counseled prior to going to war to count the costs. If on paper it costs more than what we'd gain, then either diplomacy or leaving things alone should be the only choices. But how often have we seen countries go to war without having first following this counsel, resulting in them paying far more than they could afford?

But those predominated by fear live in narrowed states of vision. Fear handicaps expanded perspective, causing those who're afraid to make big life decisions with little to none of the vital information about the risk involved, such as how ethically, morally wrong it might be, who could get hurt, what it could costs.