personal development on Honesty

No legacy is so rich as honesty.

As my AA, NA, and CA friends have repeatedly reminded me, rigorous honesty is the first rule of recovery.

Pretty much all the honest truth telling there is in the world is done by children.

It's discouraging to think how many people are shocked by honesty and how few by deceit.

Leader: The word of God is alive and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the hea...

Lord of grace and truth: You meet us where we are. And when everybody lies to us, you speak with candor and honesty about what’s good, right and true. We can trust you–and we do. That’s why we can rej...

A friend once took a car to a mechanic who was able to find several things wrong with it in addition to the original problem. To fix it all would cost about $700. He went to a second mechanic, who sai...

What I like about experience is that it is such an honest thing. You may take any number of wrong turnings; but keep your eyes open and you will not be allowed to go very far before the warning signs ...

Honest and courageous people have very little to say about either their courage or their honesty.

We must speak honestly—but also wisely.

Desires are best understood as our most honest experiences of ourselves, in all our complexity and depth, as we relate to people and things around us

Gracious, patient God, too often we don’t trust you. We don’t trust you enough to be honest with you, to share our doubts with you, or to be real with other people about our struggles. Lord, please he...

We become whole by praying our honest joys and our honest sorrows. We pray our honest praise of God and our honest anger at God; we pray also for honest speech in our words to God.

O Holy One, we call to you and name you as eternal, ever-present, and boundless in love. Yet there are times, O God, when we fail to recognize you in the dailyness of our lives. Sometimes shame clench...

It is more important that you should know about the reverses than about the successes of the war. We shall have all eternity to celebrate the victories, but we have only the few hours before sunset in...

If you’ve ever watched a war movie, or a film that takes place in the military, you’re likely to have encountered a specific scene, in which a subordinate will have something to tell a senior officer ...

All: O Lord, you declare that the forgiven person is blessed, that the person who has no deceit is blessed. We confess that we have had deceitful hearts, deceitful tongues, deceitful thoughts, and dec...

I found that keeping company with poets, men and women who care about words and are honest with them, who respect and honor their sheer overwhelming power, kept me alert—biblically alert, Jesus alert.

There once was a popular shaman in India whom people would seek out for advice. People would stand in line for hours, waiting to hear the choices they should make in their lives or the changes that wo...

Pastor: Who are you? Ministers: We are God’s people, called by God’s love in Jesus the Christ, not because we are adequate or worthy, but because of God’s ac­ceptance of us. Pastor: Why have you c...

The earth is the LORD’s and all that is in it, the world, and those who live in it; for he has founded it on the seas, and established it on the rivers. Who shall ascend the hill of the LORD? And...

Leader: The good news in Christ is that when we face ourselves and God with the awareness of our need, we are given grace to grow, and courage to continue the journey. Friends, believe the good news o...

The relationship between wartime leaders Winston Churchill and Franklin Delano Roosevelt has been well chronicled by historians of the period. On one visit to the United States, Roosevelt wheeled hims...

James Stockdale and what is now known as the Stockdale Paradox comes from his experience as a prisoner of war for seven years during the Vietnam War. The Stockdale Paradox, made famous in Jim Collins’...

He wonders if he’s lying. If he is, he is hung in the middle of nowhere, and the thought hollows him.

To be alive is to be broken. And to be broken is to stand in need of grace. Honesty keeps us in touch with our neediness and the truth that we are saved sinners. There is a beautiful transparency to h...

Too often we are given a choice—emotions or faith and belief. Yet as Dan Allender and Tremper Longman observe,  Emotion links our internal and external worlds. To be aware of what we feel can open ...

My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Why are you so far from saving me, from the words of my groaning? O my God, I cry by day, but you do not answer, and by night, but I find no rest. It doesn&...

A Leadership Coach’s Perspective I make it a habit to study what’s happening in churches across the country. I get the honor of coaching some incredible pastors, so I need to stay fresh. Any time I’m...

As a five-year-old at Christmas I remember how excited I was to get my first bike. It was a yellow BMX Huffy, a mean machine for a kid in the late 70s. It is one of my fondest memories because I remem...