Skip to main content

Truth Be Told



             Maybe I am just now seeing something that has always been there, but it seems to me that more and more people are lying about things that don’t really matter.  I see it with appointment times; the person will tell you they will arrive at your home before 10 and well after noon no one is there.  I see it with questions; I ask the clerk, “Do your carry this product?” They will answer “Yes” I will drive over to the store to find out that they don’t really carry it but they can order it.  I see it in planning events, you will ask someone are they going to an event, and they will tell you “Yes, we are excited about it” but when the time comes you find out they made other plans.  Is my car ready to be picked up?  Yes (But it’s not).  Will this be in by tomorrow? Yes (But it won’t be).  Can I get a straight answer? Yes (But you never will).  Over and over, I ask for simple answers but rather than give me the truth, people give me the answer they think I want to hear.  None of these answers would be as infuriating as the lies they tell.  However, since they lie to me, I change my schedule, make the extra trip, buy the extra ticket, take the extra time all based on an assumption that people wouldn’t lie about something so small but more and more they do.  Is it just me?

            It can’t be just me because I see this too much in other areas. Coaches that will tell the media of their commitment to their current job, all the while they are putting the final touches on their new contract elsewhere.  Employers telling the staff that a raise or promotion is just around the corner, when in fact it is nowhere in sight.  Politician telling us the “facts” of an event when they don’t have a clue what is going on.  Our society has just gotten too comfortable with lying and what’s worse, we have gotten comfortable with being lied to.  The truth isn’t what we always want to hear.  It might upset us, make us uncomfortable, might inconvenience us.  It seems easier to lie and be lied to.  Easier but still very wrong.  Lies come from a terrible source (John 8:44).  Liars have no place in heaven (Revelation 21:27, 22:15).  Lying may be easy but it comes at a steep price (Revelation 21:8).
           
That is why we see over and over the importance in scripture of not only saying the truth but knowing what you say IS truth.  In Ecclesiastes 5:5-6 we read, “It is better that you should not vow than that you should vow and not pay. Do not let your speech cause you to sin and do not say in the presence of the messenger of God that it was a mistake. Why should God be angry on account of your voice and destroy the work of your hands?”  Jesus told his followers, "But let your statement be, 'Yes, yes' or 'No, no'; anything beyond these is of evil (Matthew 5:37).  James tells us, “But above all, my brethren, do not swear, either by heaven or by earth or with any other oath; but your yes is to be yes, and your no, no, so that you may not fall under judgment (James 5:12 ).

               We need to quit lying.  We need to quit liking being lied to.  We need to realize that truth is always  preferable to lies.  Part of the reason that lying in our society has becomes so ordinary is because we tolerate it.  As Ephesians 4:25 tells us, “Therefore, laying aside falsehood, SPEAK TRUTH EACH ONE of you WITH HIS NEIGHBOR, for we are members of one another.” Truth be told, the truth need to be told!
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

I Know All Those Words, But That Sentence Makes No Sense To Me

  Let’s say you travel back in time six hundred years or so.  Luckily, you happen across a fellow that speaks English.  Upon hearing your tale, he describes you as nice, smart, and handsome.  Wouldn’t you feel good?   You shouldn’t.  As Sol Steinmetz in his book, Semantics Antics , explains; Nice originally meant someone who was foolish, ignorant, senseless, or absurd (middle English 1300). Smart for the first 300 years of its use meant causing pain, sharp, cutting, or severe, a sense that survives in the idiom "smart as a whip.” Handsome wasn’t complimentary. When coined around 1425, it just meant easily handled; it didn’t have its current positive connotation until 1590.   You might think he said you were a kind, intelligent, good looking bloke, when in reality he said you were a foolish pain easily dealt with.   Words have an annoying habit of changing meaning over time in the same language and it becomes even more compli...
Post a Comment
Read more

Master Your Self

  In a contest for the toughest president of the United States, it would be hard to go against Theodore Roosevelt.  He was known for his “manly” pursuits hunting big game, climbing the Matterhorn, participating in boxing match while president. (These weren’t play fights, he lost the vision on one eye because of them!)  Once before he was about to give a speech an assassin shot him in the chest.  Roosevelt refused to go to a hospital and insisted on giving his speech, still wearing his blood-soaked shirt!   Teddy might have become tough but he wasn’t born that way.  He was a sickly child that suffered from severe asthma that almost proved fatal.  As was a young boy, doctors discovered that he had a weak heart, and advised him to get a desk job and not strain himself.  He was homeschooled because of his many illnesses and spent most of his time indoors.   But then as a teen his father, whom Teddy Roosevelt revered, told his son, “ ...
Post a Comment
Read more

The Gift You Give Yourself

    I always hated buying gifts for my Mom. If I got her something like a new set of pans, it was like saying “Here’s something you can use to go make me something to eat”. A gift for her was seemingly a gift for me.   There are however gifts you give that benefit you more than the receiver. For example, forgiveness. When you give it, you are giving it to yourself as much as you are giving it to them. Jesus said that when we forgive others it means God is forgiving us our wrongs (Matthew 6:14-15).  I once read: “ Heaven is where everyone's forgiven. Hell is where nobody's forgiven.  So, when we forgive we pull heaven down into our lives.  When we withhold forgiveness, we pull hell up into our lives ” Give yourself something nice today, Forgive.
Post a Comment
Read more