Utmost Good Faith

Have you ever had a million different people telling you a million different things?  Okay, while a million may be a slight exaggeration, that is exactly what is happening to me.  And I'm confused.  I've never been so confused in my entire life.  Who do I believe?  Who do I trust?  At the end of the day I am not sure.  My heart tells me one thing, but my head tells me another.  I'm not writing all this down to attack, I am simply being honest and open about where I am.

There is a term we use in insurance called "utmost good faith."  In a nutshell when you buy an insurance policy your insurer relies upon the facts that you give them when they decide whether or not to accept or reject the risk.  Misrepresentation and blatant lies not only affect your coverage but everyone else's as well.  The insurer also has a legal obligation to disclose all information which would influence any decision for you to enter into the contract. Utmost good faith that applies to both the parties - both are legally held to a superior standard of honesty.  

You may be wondering where I am going with this and here it is.  I (knowing myself as I do) would never mislead a person or fail to disclose a pertinent fact that may influence how they think or feel about me - even at the expense of hurting that person.  Selfishly, most people might attempt to misrepresent the facts for their own personal gain or purpose.  They may even think that they are getting away with it and, for awhile, they might.  Eventually it will backfire and they will be the one left with nothing.  Just a simple (yet sometimes scary) act of telling the truth could have avoided it all.   

So when I am confused I rest assured knowing this fact: the truth always comes out in the end.  Truth will set you free.

Encounters

We all encounter people who come into our life for a season, for a reason.  I've learned so many lessons from the people I've met in my lifetime.  Lessons about myself, human nature, values, hypocrisies, lies and truth.  It is those lessons that not only shape the person I am, but influence the person I am evolving to be.   And I can say, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that when I die I want the people who knew me to say that while I may not have been perfect I was loving, honest, loyal and kind. To say I did unto others what I would have had them do unto me - no matter how I was treated.  That I was Christian ... and not in the religious sense of the word.

I suppose I could abandon the high road in life. I could live with the vain, shallow and self-serving attitude that so many people seem to embrace today.  Yes, it sounds so much easier.  Then again, I'd probably die lonely and miserable.  I'd be that person in the old age home who nobody goes to see.  Washed up and bitter ... alone.  Because selfishness leaves you bankrupt.  But selflessness?  It makes you rich.  Rich in the things that really matter.