Good morning everyone, your friend MB here. I’ve been thinking a lot about the subject of lying and just generally being untruthful, especially this morning. I got to thinking about exactly how detrimental that is to one’s christian life.

I’m ashamed to say it, but I was toying around with starting this article with a greeting that included a lie. The lie would’ve been to protect the sensibilities of my readers, but a lie is still a lie.

 I was going to say that I’ve been sitting outside in my outdoor rocking chair thinking about this all morning while drinking tea. But truthfully that’s not true.

I’m actually writing this right now sitting just a foot or two away from the shower, if you know what I mean. 

🚽

It’s not pretty, but it’s the truth.

The truth isn’t always pretty, but it is always right.

And that is the center of this little nuggets of knowledge.

The truth is always the best option; not only is the best option, but it is what our loving, heavenly father, the one true living God desires no… Commands of us. Even when it hurts or is uncomfortable, the truth is always the answer.

Sometimes, it’s difficult for us to tell the truth because we can only see what we stand to lose if we do. But we don’t often think of what we stand to lose if we choose to lie instead.

Telling the truth, you might lose a friend, you might lose the love of a family member, you might lose the respect of your coworkers, you might very well lose your job or even your life.

But in telling a lie, you lose something that is much more precious. You lose connection with God. Lying is a sin and sin damages our connection with him. It distances us from him and tarnishes our relationship with him.

Now I know what some of you are thinking, “ what about the little white lies I tell to spare somebody’s feelings? Surely those aren’t sinful.” 

The truth of this matter is any amount of untruthfulness is sinful. If you’ve got something difficult to say, you don’t have to be blunt and straightforward about it. If you want to protect someone’s feelings, try to use softer language, but the truth needs to be told. 

If you have any sort of relationship where you have to lie to fit in or make them like you, you shouldn’t be in that relationship, whether it’d be a professional, Familial, romantic or otherwise, the connection isn’t worth damaging your relationship with God. 

I bring this up today because I’ve seen in myself something that I’m not proud of. I used to be someone who would lie at the drop of a hat as a form of self preservation and to keep control over a situation. I used to be someone who would lie to preserve relationships that I had with people. I had not done that in months until just this morning in fact.

A family member asked me for my help in a personal matter. I had helped this family member several times before I came to know Jesus. I continued to help them after finding salvation out of love for them, and out of a desire to maintain my connection with them. My life has gone through many changes since finding my salvation in Christ Jesus. Locations have changed, jobs have changed, the amount of free time I have has changed. Most importantly, my sensibilities have changed. All of these things have changed enough that I can no longer help this family member. 

With that being said, I continued to push and help this person for months. Why? Because I didn’t wanna hurt them. I continued to lie and tell them it was fine that I was helping them. I continued to lie and make up excuses when I didn’t feel like helping them, but didn’t wanna tell them I didn’t want to. Excuses that would buy me time but wouldn’t hurt them. I found myself drifting back into the habit of lying for preservation of either self or relationship. And yes, even for convenience sometimes.

Through these last few months, God has been convicting me about it. Telling me he doesn’t want me to do that anymore. It’s only now that I realize that I had slowly been drifting back into habits that I thought were dead. I thank God that I have realized this and I have made it so that I do not have to help that family member anymore.

Will I lose the connection with that family member? Most likely. But I submit to you that I would rather lose that connection and keep my connection with God. 

Ladies and gentlemen, the truth is always the best option.

Matthew 5:37 “ but let your yes be yes and your no be no. Anything more than this is from the evil one”

-MB