Lies

It seemed like I had not been able to lie for almost a year now. I couldn't even exagerate a story to make it more exciting in the telling. Now I have done it, in what may be seen as small ways, more than one time in the last week. One was to make me look industrious instead of just wasting time and yesterday I defended a past action with a lie about how it happened. I gave me an excuse to screw up and really I just screwed up, no excuse.

One was to make me look good to another and two were to keep me from a percieved embarrassment or punishment. Those are pretty common reasons to lie. I'm feeling pretty low.

I don't like lying to others or myself anymore. I didn't want to confess. That has it's own punishment in it. Someone that believed you learns they were not observant enough to see the lie you told. Sometimes I think that hurts worse than that you lose a little of your trust toward one that lied to you. You don't like thinking you were lied to by one you trust.

But the act of confessing and apologizing tells them you care enough for a right and honest relationship with them that you would not have a lie between you. That care you show by confessing starts mending the breach the lie created between you. I think so, anyway. I still didn't want to tell the ones I lied to what I did.

I struggled to see those, small lies as important enough to correct. He brought it to me in several different ways. Mostly that it is nagging at my mind and I can't let go of it. It has been eating at me. Maybe feeding off me is more like it. The bad feeling seems to grow the more I think about them. I can't seem to ignore them any more. To stop it I had to correct it the best I could.

The other thing I see is if those two instances were so hard to make right for me how hard is it for others to correct these things? We don't teach it in school. We barely teach it in church. By confessing to these others I was showing them it could be done and how I did it.

Maybe they would do better one day than I did confessing or not lying again, seeing how hard the repair of one is. That would be even better. I hope something good comes out of it. I have let the one fester for a week. There have been a variety of valid reasons but it is still bothering me. It feels like the only thing coming out of it right now is a poison of shame that I did it.

I think the main thought I found in prayer is that if I am His I want to reflect his love in all I do. I have to tell the truth no matter how it seems like it will affect me. Love is Truth, to me.

I have to give him my fears. I have to trust his love to lead me safely. I try to do things His way.

His love is truth in a way the words can't express. If I send out untruth in the world I am not reflecting His love but my fear. That is not what I want to put into my life or any other.

By telling a lie I am putting out, what I call "not love" into the world around me. I can try to mend it by confessing and apologizing but the harm is only patched not whole again unless He mends it for me when I give it to Him. I don't want to be ashamed of my behavior in front of Him again. I can see the learnings in this but I don't have to like them. I like it that He cares enough to teach me but I hope I am getting quicker so I don't have to do so many repeats.

I want to be truthful in all things here. He shows me I am still learning. I can only say what the truth is as I see it and try to remember I can't see very far at all. It's a misty and limited view.

The nephew and I went over this not long ago. I hit a deer with my truck. The fenders and hood have been replaced but not painted. It was parked back end toward us.

That nephew and I would have said it was white, but the one coming in from hunting would have seen just the front coming in and wondered who was there until he got up beside it.

He saw two colors on it then and said so when asked twice. It had always been "Aunt's white truck" so the first time he said "I see a white truck is here." I said, what color? He answered, "White and brown." That was the truth he saw when he came around the corner.

Someone under five feet tall standing directly in front of my truck is going to see it as brown. They will swear to it. It is the truth for them. Another person, five and a half feet tall, standing a few feet behind my truck is going to swear it is white. It is the truth for them.

If I happen to be there for this I can clear it up because I know all of my truck, from the dings to the hitch in the hood latch. I can tell them they are both partly right and partly wrong.

If they just stand there and debate it nothing is going to stop the conflict. They are both telling the truth as they see it. Neither one will back down on what they know is their truth.

For the debate to end one of them only has to move a few feet left or right to see all of the truck and "discover" the truth. One might say, "come over here and look", but that only works if the other is willing to move. There has to be a change in perspective for at least one of them for them both to see the truth.

Nothing changes until something moves. Either one of them has to move, I have to come join them and tell them what I know or the truck has to move.

The truth is there was nothing to debate. They were both right and they were both wrong. It is a two color truck. Where they stood they couldn't see all of it. The way they were built didn't let them see all of it.

They were not stupid, stubborn or insane, as they might have called each other. They just believed that what they saw of the truck was the same all the way around it. It's a pretty common mistake. We call it making an assumption and use it to jump to conclusions.

That is what I see as a problem in saying what is truth for me and holding to it so hard that I won't listen to another person's perspective. If I try to understand how they see it then I am trying to change my perspective. I may learn more of the whole truth if I am just willing to move what I believe to one side and try and see it from where they are standing.

If I just say "this is the truth I see so it must be true for everyone" I am forgetting I am too small to see all of what I am looking at. I forget I am not standing where they are. I forget I am not built like they are. They may see more than me.

By not being willing to consider others may be right, too, we lock ourselves up from finding there is more to the truth we saw than we could see alone. I only have one way to see things unless I look at it with others who are different from me.

Our two parts of a truth might just be small parts of a larger truth and by sharing them with open minds we find there is more than one way to see it.

But I know if I have told a lie when I know the truth I will have the truth trying to get out of me and I don't like trying to hold it inside. I may protect myself from punishment or someone thinking poorly of me but I will hurt myself by it.

I would rather be thumped and get it over with than have it nibble at all of my days. How can I say any truth with a lie standing there in my way?

One more to go and then I can feel right inside again. I should be able to fix it tonight. I got the cell phone fixed and that was the only way to get ahold of my friend. I didn't want them think I was just sitting here wasting time. It was such a pointless lie. I was shamed when I said it. Now I have to try and fix it.

I just realized I used to feel like this as a child when I told a lie. It may be Him letting me "off the leash" to see how I walk alone. Thanks to Him for the thought that my spirit is tender again, not the hard and dark thing it was not long ago that lied without even thinking first to those I judged unimportant to my life. I was honest, but only with those I loved.

I don't know that I can walk without being dishonest all the time here. It's a challenge to even think about it. I'm thinking. I'm praying.

What is your view? Click on "comments" below and you can tell me. Don't use real names on the net please. Leave a nick name in your post for me. I will figure it out.