100 OUR WORDS
100 OUR WORDS
Most of us would say that we are honest and really believe that about ourselves.
Well, we would not tell the truth to a person who is dying because we don’t want them to get worse by worrying about death, or tell that person next door that their activities drive us nuts, when they ask about them, because we don’t want to be bad neighbours with them. We lie about knowing about what we have done to the police officer so we won’t get a ticket and have to pay for it because we really can’t afford to pay right now; simple little ‘white lies’ that don’t hurt anyone but will ‘help’ them or help us to stay out of trouble.
Irregardless of what we say or how we say it, our words tell others weather we are honest or not. To tell a lie to anyone, weather we think it would help them or not, is telling them that we don’t think that they are smart enough or mentally capable enough to handle the truth. We have made that choice for them; making ourselves better able than they to decide what they want to hear.
Don’t have the time for a long drawn out conversation? A little ‘white lie’ will get us past someone without hurting them, right? No! We have just told that person that they are not important enough, in our life, to simply say “I’m in a hurry and can’t talk right now, sorry.” but, that might commit us to another time and cut into our busy schedule, also.
We lie continuously to get away from people and don’t want to admit to ourselves that we are doing it.
It has become a part of our life to be a liar at times so we can get through our day. Our minds are kept so busy by work, relationships and play that we don’t have enough energy for them all.
In a world that has become so small because of our ability to communicate that we can know things that are happening around the world, we take on things that eat up our time and energy that have no direct bearing on our lives and pass off, with a lie, genuine friendship and generosity with a general and, now, thoughtless lie.
Because everyone is doing it [and, yes God help me, even me], we have accepted this as the way it is, so it must be acceptable by God, too; unfortunately for us, no.
God does not lie. He treats us like the person we are and gives us the respect that He would want us to give Him and everyone else and He tells us the truth, weather we want to hear it or not, so that we can make good, informed decisions about our own lives and the things that are our responsibility to decide.
Any lie is designed to take away from another’s life while it eases our burden; but, by telling them, we also create distance between ourselves and others; taking away our respect and trust for each other. By continually lying to each other, we have set others up to not believe the real truth, when we tell it to them, and our Christian witness falls on deaf ears because we have set it up that way. We are lying, like everyone else, so the truth is lost.
The only way we can get the truth to be believed is to stop doing what everyone else is doing and tell the truth ALL THE TIME; even when we don’t have the time, energy or ability to do it. Only when we tell the truth all the time, will our words be believed, so we had better start now because people will have to get used to hearing only the truth from us before they can learn to expect only the truth. Then, maybe, they will believe when we tell them the truth about Jesus.
