“I Shouldn’t Say This, But . . .”

You’ve heard these before haven’t you?

“This may not be right, but . . .”

“I don’t want to gossip, but . . .”

“Maybe I shouldn’t say this, but . . .”

Why would we say something like this? Why would we acknowledge what is wrong and then proceed to do exactly what we want to do?

“Look, this really isn’t a big lie. This is what you have to do in this business if you don’t want to lose an account.”

“No, I didn’t tell them what was wrong with this car before I sold it to them. It’s up to them to figure it out. I’m not about to lose any more money on this car.”

“OK, I’m not proud of what I had to do to pass the test this morning. You don’t understand; if I don’t do well on this class, I won’t get into graduate school.

“Maybe my resume isn’t exactly accurate. Look, I need to make this look as good as possible. This is what everyone else is doing. There are a lot of people wanting this job and I need any advantage I can get.

“Plagiarism? No, you don’t understand. Everybody has to use someone else’s material now and then. It’s just a part of it.”

“I know you are over twelve, but tickets are so much cheaper for children under twelve. I told the ticket lady you were under twelve. It’s no big deal.”

“Yea, I was up late last night. My child had a paper due that I had to write. No, she had not even started. If I had not written it for her, she would have gotten a bad grade.”

“Hey, if my wife asks where we went, tell her that our golf game lasted longer than normal. I don’t want her to know where we went.”

Some people rationalize and justify behavior if it seems to give them an advantage.

Meanwhile, as followers of Christ, we are invited to do what may seem irrational. We are invited to trust God with our lives. We are asked to turn the management of our lives and future over to him.

So often, we don’t trust God. We like the idea of trusting God. We do not like the notion of trusting God with the details in the practical areas of our lives. We do not know if he will take care of us even if we do the right thing. We do not trust him with our future. So, we take over and “do what it takes” in our feeble attempt to manage our lives.

Do you feel this tension in your life? Do you feel the tension between wanting whatever might give you an advantage (though it might involve dishonesty) and knowing you have been called to trust God?

I have found it to be fairly easy to say, “I want to trust God.” I have found it more difficult to trust God with a particular decision or issue when a lot might be at stake. Yet, I know that God wants me to learn to trust him with the details and the outcome.

Question

Have you felt this same tension in your own life at times?