The Grace of Clarity, The Fire of Truth

~ Written May 28, 2025. Reflections on truth, inner freedom, and the divine grace that reveals what must be seen, often through pain, to set us free.

When Christ spoke the words, “You will know the truth, and the truth will set you free,” many missed, and still miss, what he was truly pointing to. The original Greek uses the word logos, often translated as “word,” but its deeper meaning points to divine truth, the living essence of what he taught and embodied. It wasn’t about dogma, a doctrine, or even religion. It was about the beautiful gift of clarity, to see one’s entanglements and hooks that keep us in the bondage of illusion, delusion, and untruth. It is the grace of clarity and truth that gives us our freedom back, the freedom to exist fully and wholly in our own hearts.

I could have never gotten sober and off opiates for more than 20 years now were it not for the grace of clarity, of clear seeing. Even now, I can still allow other things to crowd my inner space and create dis-ease if I’m not mindful. Addiction to thinking, to approval, to control, to people, to success… these are all symptoms of my tendency to drift into illusion, to escape reality and life itself. I often pray for clarity when I’ve succumbed to such things, as they all bring suffering in the end.

Oftentimes, however, it is only through suffering and pain that we become aware of the need for such grace. We can’t, of our own accord and intellect, stop certain self-sabotaging behaviors and addictions, and we seem stuck in an ever-repeating cycle of samsara (suffering), unable to break the quicksand, quagmire-like hold it has upon us.

When we are ready and open to grace and clarity, and not one minute sooner, it arrives. Sometimes painfully, in the beginning. But surrender to it. Die into it. Throw oneself fully and obediently into this rare form of grace. It is God-sent, and its fire will consume the shackles of bondage and free you. Love will not burn what is its own, only that which needs refining and purification.

Trust is essential. Before, you placed this trust in yourself alone. Now, you must place hope where it is rightfully deserving.

This grace will not leave you lacking, nor wanting. It is your own highest truth that has come to set you free. It only needs a ripe invitation.

~ Shambo