Lies Are Easy To Tell

Romans 9:1
Acts 5:1-5

It amazes me how easily truth can be twisted into a lie. Whether a "little white lie", a manipulation, an omission of truth, a misunderstanding, or a direct and purposeful deception, we find excuses to lie to others, to God, to ourselves. Yet lies never are encouraged by God nor are they ever successful against Him. He will see through every deception and make the truth visible to everyone (Lk 12:2). A lie may seem successful for a time, yet it will cause us difficulties in discerning right from wrong in other areas of our life, confuse us as we try to keep the story consistent, make it challenging to trust others (maybe they're lying also?), and make it difficult for others to trust us in the future. Yet what amazes me is how difficult it is to be truly honest in this world. Even though I try to always tell the truth I find misunderstandings popping up ("Oh, that's what you were asking? What I told you was wrong because I thought you meant something else."), and omissions of truth ("no, I won't tell you what I bought you for your birthday; you just have to wait"). Because these things happen that aren't really lies and aren't really wrong but still smudge the line between honesty and deception, I need to work that much harder at protecting the truth whenever possible. I need to protect the difference between an acceptable omission of truth and an unacceptable one (someone's looking for an item; I know where it is but choose not to tell even when they ask me). I need to guard against the temptation to lie to myself ("that's not really so bad, it's not really sinful..."). I want to speak and act in such a way that I can call on God as my witness and He can confirm the truth of my words and deeds. I want to live in a manner that is upright and honest, with no lies staining my conscience.
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