We Cannot Lie To God

21 Jan

“Anything is better than lies and deceit!”  ~ Leo Tolstoy

Children learn to lie very early on.  They lie because they do not want to be held accountable.  If they break something, someone else broke it.  If they took something, someone else took it.  If they failed to do something, someone else was supposed to do it.  They deflect constantly and heap lie upon lie.  As they grow older, they realize that their lies have consequences.  Sooner or later, they will be found out.  When they are, the punishment is usually much harsher than if they would have told the truth in the first place.

Still, lying is an insidious part of our human nature.  While children learn that their lies have consequences, they see lying modeled by parents, relatives, and friends.  It was quite common, when I was growing up, to be instructed to tell the person on the phone that my dad was not home even though he was sitting at the dinner table with the rest of us.  That lie, as “innocent” as it might have seemed, reinforced an alternate set of values that held that lying, while wrong, can be right in certain situations.

When we make excuses about what is wrong, we muddy the waters of our lives.  We can fall into bad habits that can lead us away from the Lord.  That would be a horrible tragedy.

Nothing is concealed from God.  We might think that we do a good job keeping things from other people.  However, we can never hide — our true selves, our thoughts, our hopes, our desires or our sins — from God.  He sees all, knows all, and, in due time, judges all.

If we want to find ourselves on the right side of the line when we meet God, we have to do all that we can right now to be honest with ourselves and with God.

FAITH ACTION:  Have you  been attempting to deceive God?  It might be time to go to confession and reconcile yourself with the God who sees and knows all.