When Words Lose Their Ground
It's unsettling how quickly a story can be hollowed out. The way a person’s most private, identity-defining truths can be reshaped, almost surgically, to fit a specific legal requirement. There is a certain clinical efficiency to it. An adviser suggests a different path, a different way of presenting oneself, and suddenly the person is no longer speaking their own truth, but performing a script designed to bypass a gate.
At first, it might seem like a clever way to navigate a broken system. But if we look closer, the cost is much heavier than a mere technicality. When we treat our identities as pieces on a chessboard, the very idea of truth begins to fray. False stories make it harder for true ones to be heard. They teach systems to suspect everyone, including those already carrying real fear and real wounds. We start to lose the ground we are standing on. It isn’t just that the system is being tricked; it’s that the language of our own lives is being devalued.
Psalm 51 says that God desires “truth in the inward parts”. It reminds us that truth isn't just about the facts we present, but about the integrity of the person presenting them. We might find ourselves wondering how much of our own "story" is actually ours, and how much we have polished or altered to be more acceptable to the world around us. There is a quiet, difficult courage in refusing to perform. It is the courage to stand in the truth of who we are, even when that truth offers no tactical advantage, and even when the simpler, more convenient lie is so much more useful.
Because in the Kingdom God is bringing, truth will not be something we perform. It will be the ground beneath our feet.
