The Trouble With Lying
Do you remember the first time you told a lie? Maybe it would be easier to remember the first time you were “caught” in a lie, those tend to stick in your mind a little crisper don’t they?
Lying is something that tends to come easy to us, in fact, our first lie most likely rolled off of our tongue without even thinking twice about it. We were asked a simple yes or no question and although we knew the answer was no, we said yes, or vice versa. Usually we did this because A: we would get in trouble if we told the truth or B: we wouldn’t get to do something we really wanted to do if we told the truth. And so began our lives as liars.
You may object to me calling you a liar, but the finger is pointing at me as well. When I was younger I was quite a proficient liar. If there were an event in the Olympics for lying, I might not have gotten the gold, but I certainly would have been in medal contention.
The problem with a lie is that it gets very lonely. In other words, lies almost always come in pairs or more because you need to keep the lie looking valid long enough to “get away with it”. Then, of course, one lie leads to another, to another, and on and on.
A well known quote of Sir Walter Scott puts it quite succinctly: “O’ what a tangled web we weave, when we practice to deceive!”
King David puts his own spin on it with the promised blessing:
Whoever of you loves life and desires to see many good days,
keep your tongue from evil and your lips from speaking lies. – Psalm 34:12-13
