To Seek Truth is to have a growth mindset, always open to what God, the Universe, others, etc., might be saying to you. For me, this means to hold onto our truths, beliefs, and opinions like we would a baby… tight enough we won’t drop it but loosely enough we won’t crush it. From here, with an open mind and an open heart, we are called to Testify and speak honestly about our truths (i.e. own experiences). By sharing our perspectives and beliefs with humility and respect, we invite others to do the same.
Too often, we choose other things over the truth… whether that’s harmony over truth, our feelings over truth, or even our own arrogant slim perspectives over truth.
Truth is not only the culmination of every infinitely possible perspective, but it goes further by including those truths that are honest and absolutely true as well as excluding those perspectives that distort the greater narrative. When we pervert the truth by trusting in our own limited, flawed, and selfish perspectives, we miss out on the whole truth, the wider the truth, the deeper truth. Only when we approach truth with humility that speaks to the understanding that there is “always more to the story” will we ever recognize that truth only reveals to us what we are ready to accept.
For this reason, it’s critical that we as individuals (and as a people) prepare for truths to be revealed to us… that we are “open” to the idea that there is more going on than we currently realize.
Only when we are open… holding to our beliefs both tightly and loosely… will we ever be open to the possibility of more truth, more wisdom, more everything.
Which brings us to the term, oxymoron.
An oxymoron is defined as a figure of speech in which apparently contradictory terms appear in conjunction (e.g., faith unfaithful kept him falsely true).
How does one hold a belief both tightly and loosely?
Asked another way, how does one hold a baby?
A baby is precious, fragile, innocent, alive. You hold a baby tightly enough not to drop it but lightly enough you don’t squeeze it.
Truth is similar to this.
Still, truth is neither fragile nor innocent. Truth can take your life if you aren’t wise to it. Truth is not to be trifled with. Respect it or bear the consequences.
Which brings us to the final question… how does one share truth, especially if we must admit we don’t actually know the whole truth in the first place?
For me, to share one’s truth is to consider it merely testimony, shared with the knowledge and understanding that I am but a man and that all knowledge and wisdom belongs to someone greater than I. In this way, my testimony (although personal, intimate, weighed and measured) recognizes its own limitations… and for this reason is intentional in simply pointing to the source of an absolute truth… God himself.