Defining moments occur when you come face to face with a truth and you are changed dramatically. Maybe it’s a truth that you didn’t know, or purposely had forgotten because it got in the way. Maybe it’s a truth that just got buried under the pile of life or a truth you’d rather be kept in the dark about.

Then suddenly there is an incident, an accident, a conversation -- and you are confronted with a truth that comes front and center and you see something in a new way and your life is radically changed. Your perspective, your lifestyle, your view of God and relationships are transformed when you embrace the new truth.

It happened to Sen. Max Cleland, who lost both of his legs and his right hand in Vietnam.

One day he was asked if he was doing all right. "Not really," he said. "I've been having the same dream for 30 years. I accidentally drop that grenade, I leap on it, and it explodes and blows my legs off." Several Senators began to pray for Max.

Interestingly, two days later the History Channel broadcast Max’s story just as he remembered it. A man from Annapolis saw it and phoned Max: "Senator, you have the story all wrong. That wasn't your grenade. It was a young recruit behind you who had opened the pins on his grenades before jumping out of the helicopter. One of them popped out of the belt and rolled on the ground. You leaped on it to save us all. I was on the helicopter; I know how it happened."

For 30 years Max had been left in the dark about the truth. But this was Max Cleland’s defining moment with the truth. He came face to face with the truth, and he embraced it. The nightmares disappeared. A gigantic load was lifted from him; and he became a different man.

The problem for you and me is that sometimes we’d rather be kept in the dark than know some uncomfortable truth. As parents, we don’t want to find out the truth from a neighbor or teacher that our kids aren’t as wonderful as we think they are--having problems or causing trouble. We just don’t want to know that kind of information.

For those of you who are single and in love, you have found the love of your life. You’ve seen a few red flags and heard some troubling comments, but you don’t want to believe them to be true. You want to believe he’s perfect—she’s perfect. You’d rather be left in the dark. So you don’t respond to any truth because you don’t want anything to mess up your love life.

The same thing happens in marriage. There’s warning signs. Other people have pointed out some unhealthy patterns. But you want to believe that everything is okay and that things will get better on their own. So you’d rather stay in the dark than have your bubble busted with the truth.

Why do we do this? There is something inside of us that doesn’t want to know the truth. We hope that if we ignore the truth long enough, it won’t be the truth anymore. We think by ignoring the pain long enough, the pain will go away. So we ignore what we see in our peripheral vision to be true. Although it’s not rational, it’s how we respond to life. Here’s our pathetic life motto: "What I don’t know won’t hurt me."

Just as it’s never productive to ignore the truth about your kids, marriage, boyfriend/girlfriend, finances, job, and health, it’s never productive to turn a blind eye to God and his truth. It never leads to a good result.

This is the same kind of world Jesus invaded. People were ignoring God’s truth. They had exchanged God’s truth for man-made traditions and beliefs. Jesus walked into an environment where being rich, was a sign of divine blessing. If you were poor, God was cursing you. If you were sick, it was because your parents had sinned. If something bad happened to you, God was punishing you. People believed that you had to be Jewish and good to get to heaven. The first century world was totally confused and in the dark about God’s character and truth.

No wonder when Jesus arrived on the scene and claimed to be God and the light of the world that people were blown away by his teaching about the truth. John 3:19 says, "Light (Jesus) has come into the world, but men loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil." The light—Jesus’ truth—was blinding, shocking, and amazing. But as the people began to embrace God’s truth and break from the man-made traditions, they experienced defining moments, and their lives were transformed forever.

Jesus offers us two steps for experiencing a defining moment. John 8:31 says, "Jesus said, ‘If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples.’" The word "hold" means "to abide, to remain, to pause, to stay, to live in." Jesus is saying, "Even though my truth is radical, hard to understand, uncomfortable, and anti-cultural, if you will abide, if you will pause, if you will stay close to my teachings and allow them to penetrate your heart, if you will be like a sponge and absorb my teachings--you will demonstrate that you’re truly my followers."

Here’s His point: When we are first exposed to Jesus’ teaching, the truth is like a blinding light to us who have lived in darkness all our lives. The reaction to a blinding light is: "Wow! I can’t see it. I can’t comprehend that. It doesn’t make any sense to me. It’s so against the culture. It’s so radical. This is too unbearable. It’s distracting—even offensive. I’m not comfortable here. I want to go back into the darkness." But Jesus says, "If you will abide or hold on to my truth, your heart and mind will adjust."

But Jesus offers a promise in the next verse (John 8:32): "Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free." The key word is "then". Jesus is saying, "After you have remained, stayed, abided in my word and allowed it to penetrate your heart, THEN in time you will know the truth and the truth will set you free."

So rather than retreat to what is comfortable and safe, and what you have always believed or were taught by a friend or parent, you remain in the light of God’s truth and over time, you’ll begin to know the truth and this truth has the power and potential to set you free. Free from what? Free from guilt, shame, sinful habits, lies, darkness, bad attitudes and fear.

When Jesus encountered people who were living outside God’s truth, many of them experienced defining moments. He brought the truth into the lives of tax collectors, adulterers, sinners, religious people, criminals, politicians, and sick people. When he flipped on the light, they were initially blinded by the truth. It was uncomfortable, painful, and overwhelming, but many of them stayed in the light—remained in God’s truth long enough for their hearts to adjust and to have a defining moment with God.

Here’s the challenge: Have the courage to allow the uncomfortable light of God’s truth to shine into those darkened areas of our lives, to stay long enough in that truth for our hearts to adjust so we can be set free from the guilt, shame, addictions, fear, anger, negative behaviors, and sin. So we can say: "I was blind, but now I see. I came face to face with God’s truth, and I was changed forever."

Do you need a defining moment today? Ask God to bring His light into your life.