In the minds of some people, there is a fast way to make your problems go away. Lie.
Didn’t do your homework? Tell the teacher you weren’t feeling well.
Stopped for speeding? Tell the officer you were trying to get to the hospital quickly because your mother is very sick.
Trying to sell your home? Tell the prospective home buyer only what will help sell the house. Don’t tell about that leaky roof.
Is the amusement park too expensive? Tell the attendant that your children are younger than they really are so they can get in with children’s tickets.
So many of us try to solve our problems by not telling the truth. Now of course we usually don’t use the word “lie.” That word sounds bad. We would see ourselves as simply trying to fix a problem.
However, these really are lies. When you lie, you do so at a very heavy price.
A number of years ago, I was watching a television news program about prisoners on death row. At one point, the reporter interviewed a man who had grown up in a very good family and had many advantages in his early years. Yet, he had murdered someone and now was on death row.
The reporter asked him, “How could this have happened? You had a good home and a good upbringing.”
The death row inmate said, “A person’s character is much like a tow sack of rocks that one is carrying over his shoulder. Each time you make a poor decision, lie, or compromise your character in some way, you lose a rock. That may seem like no big deal at the time. However, as you go through life lying and compromising, you one day realize that you have no rocks left. You have compromised your character.”
When we lie, our character is being chipped away little by little with each lie. If you are like many who lie, you one day look in the mirror and realize that you are not the man or woman you used to be.
Maybe there is a way to deal with our problems through the grace of God instead of only making them bigger.
Question
What are we often tempted to lie instead of facing our problems?
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