AM: I need to keep speaking the truth into situations, and be honest. I want to get better at that, because it’s important. 

Betty: Well, there too, God’s manner, timing, and intensity, is really key.  Because if we speak truth when a person isn’t ready to hear it, it can have the opposite effect on them.  So, pray for that tremendous gift to be able to discern manner, timing, and intensity.  We have to be really careful and make sure it’s the Lord who gives the okay to speak, so the person is ready and the grace is received. 

The apostles said something to Jesus like, “Why don’t you  speak plainly to these Pharisees?” Jesus replied, “Lest hearing they hear and seeing, they see.” (Mark 4:12) What the Lord was saying was, “They’re not ready. They’re gonna say no if I say it now, because they’re just not ready.” And that’s a gift in itself to know when a person is ready to hear the truth. If we speak the truth in that moment of readiness, that’s when the person can take it in. Our job is to pray that they get ready, if the Lord says for us to step out now. And sometimes, they wallop you.  The Lord wants us to pray for them, until they get to the point where they’re even willing to do their own work to let the Word in. People are complicated.