My first question after reading today’s devotion is this:

What would it be like to find the perfect balance?

• As a parent: knowing when to discipline (come down a bit harder) vs when to just love and teach.
• As a pastor: knowing when to preach against sin (come down firmer) vs when to let it “ride.”
• As a friend: knowing when to speak hard truth against a certain action vs “how much is this friendship worth?”

Those aren’t real good a good articulation of what I’m trying to say but I know what I want to say. Maybe putting it this way: when do I shut up and when do I speak? I totally agree and get what Tripp is saying:

Truth requires me to love and love requires me to be truthful.

Here are some of his other thoughts that rung a bell in me:

• “Truth isn’t mean and love isn’t dishonest.”
• “Today I am called to loving honesty and honest love.”
• “The biblical call to love will never force me to trim, deny, or bend the truth, and the biblical call to truth will never ask me to abandon God’s call to love my neighbor.”

It’s called balance. How do I do that? How do I be truthful and be loving? It’s essential. No question. I cannot be truthful and blow someone’s doors off, and I can’t be loving and dismissive and leave truth at the door.

“Father, today, help me to find that balance. Help me to be lovingly honest and honestly loving. May any and all my hard words be motivated by love today and in the future.”