The Importance of Being Earnest or Being Yourself Despite The Cost.

The Importance of Being Earnest or Being Yourself Despite The Cost.

By Daniel Shultz

I got married a few years ago. My wife is lovely woman whom I love very dearly. She deserved a beautiful wedding, and she received one despite one of my groomsmen deciding to abandon his promise to me to be in the wedding. I wish him well, but he left me in the lurch because of an opinion I had voiced. An opinion he should have known I held to, an opinion that shouldn’t have come as surprise to him.

This friend, one whom I no longer have a relationship, has taught me the importance of standing up for what you believe. We both felt it necessary to stand up for what we believed was right, and the end of our friendship was the result. I now know just what it means to lose those who are close to you for the sake of Christ. “If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple.” (Luke 14:26)

We must do what is right even if it hurts. When things just don’t seem to be worth it we must strive to do what is right in the face of fear. We can not let ourselves become quiet when the truth is on the line. For as James the brother of our Lord said,  “So whoever knows the right thing to do and fails to do it, for him it is sin.” (James 4:17)

I have struggled at times to stand up for what I believe is true. I have sinned many times in commission (things I’ve done) and omission (things I haven't done). I’ve failed to be vocal about what I know to be the truth. I have at times “chickened out” when it comes to being bold about what’s right. Yet I want to be the type of person who works towards being a shining light to the world, the kind of person the Apostle Paul talked about “Do everything without complaining or arguing, so that you may be blameless and pure, children of God without fault in a crooked and perverse generation, in which you shine as lights in the world.” (Phil 2:15)

As hard as it is to be a shining light it's much harder to do so as the apostle Paul commanded us, “without complaining or arguing.” The very idea of doing difficult things without complaining or arguing is anathema to most of us, but we are commanded to do so nonetheless. So next time a stance seems difficult, when we face hardship for the sake of the truth, we ought to remember that it is worth it, and that we ought to do it without complaining or arguing.