A Man With No Guile

Something to strive for in life.

⁴⁷Jesus saw Nathanael coming to him, and saith of him, Behold an Israelite indeed, in whom is no guile! ⁴⁸Nathanael saith unto him, Whence knowest thou me? Jesus answered and said unto him, Before that Philip called thee, when thou wast under the fig tree, I saw thee. ⁴⁹Nathanael answered and saith unto him, Rabbi, thou art the Son of God; thou art the King of Israel. ⁵⁰Jesus answered and said unto him, Because I said unto thee, I saw thee under the fig tree, believest thou? thou shalt see greater things than these. - John 1

Guile refers to a character having hypocrisy, duplicitousness, two-facedness, deceptiveness and cunning. Nathanael was of a rare characterization in Jesus’ eyes - he was without guile. I don’t know about you, but I would love for Christ to exclaim that I had not guile.

A person of good character and solid integrity is hard to come by, particularly in our society. We’re taught to appear strong and dominant, even when we feel like crawling under a rock. Some of us find it too convenient to befriend others when no one else will talk to us, only to abandon that friend when a better social scene calls. Even children from a very young age are prone to lying to get themselves out of trouble, in spite of the fact that guilt is written all over their face and hands. It’s perfectly easy to understand why this is - no one really wants to look bad, feel bad or have to pay consequences for their behavior.

Whatever Nathanael, one of the twelve disciples was doing under the fig tree came to the attention of Jesus. Have you ever heard that saying ‘Character is how you treat people when they can do nothing for you’? I imagine that this is how Nathanael modeled his life.

We can learn to embody those things that our Heavenly Father favors today, no matter how much we’ve messed up in the past. Every day is a new day ready for new prayers, forgiveness and repentance. We need only push our pride aside and get down to work.

All praise, glory and honor to The Most High.