Last
week Monday, we considered falsehood that is usually prompted by the
need to impress (Nnamdi) and the one that is prompted by being excessively
loose-tongued. Like we established from scriptures, none of these is justified,
and so, none should be found in us.
 |
| Liar, Liar, Pants on Fire! |
This post would deal with
another two variants of falsehood. They appear to be the most common types. First,
there is the lie that is a desperate attempt to shield one from the
repercussion of a wrong. Second is the one that is also an attempt to withhold a
piece of information that we are reluctant to share. They could get
inter-twined.
Lying
to Cover Up a Wrong: when I think of this type of falsehood,
many Bible characters come to mind but top on my list would be Gehazi (Check here for the tragedy of Gehazi.) Gehazi
was the guy who missed the opportunity to get a quadruple portion of the
anointing of Prophet Elijah. His boss, Prophet Elisha had won double portion
from Elijah, and perhaps, Gehazi would have gotten a fair cut of that anointing-
if only he didn’t get greedy and lie to cover up his sins. That is the issue
with this type of falsehood- it hardly ever happens by itself; rather it is an
attempt to prevent someone who has done something wrong from getting the rewards
of his wrong doing- picture Adam trying to think up a justifiable fib for why
he ate the forbidden fruit.
Western countries have
their opinions about spanking but thank God for my mother’s spanking- it ‘delivered’
me from ending up a Gehazi. This was how it happened- while growing up, my
sisters and I (I believe I was not the only thief in that house) took special
delight in stealing milk. This was not the funny caught with your hand in the
cookie jar stuff. It was the strategically sneak around till no one is watching
and down out the diary product in sight. We didn’t stop there- we went all the
way to meat in the pot, stuff in the fridge, and baby sister’s Cerelac. I am
not proud of these things. What annoyed my mother most was not really the
things we took but the haste and vehemence with which we denied ever setting
our eyes on the missing stuff. When she couldn’t take it anymore, she showed
our backside the way of truth. Before and after spanking our brains out, she would
make us read or read to us (if we lost our voice in the spanking process) Revelations 22:15 where they lumped ‘ordinary’
liars together with serious sinners: murderers, sorcerers, whoremongers, and
dogs who will never make it inside Heaven. Reading any portion of Revelations
is not exactly fun but that verse just made it worse. Between my mother’s switch,
the golden Book of Revelations and the mercy of God, we got born again and ‘renounced
hidden works of shame (2 Corinthians
4:2).
As I grew older, I stumbled
severally- not in stealing stuff, but in thinking up lies to cover up a wrong. You
know how you took the time to craft a story that can wriggle you out of the
Principal’s hard knocks, your boss’ queries and your friends’ disappointment. While
lies may grant us temporal reprieve, we consistently burden our souls with more
debris. What God requires from us is the truth in inward places Psalm 51:6). Owning up to our failings
and repenting instantly is what David had that Saul did not. I am always
inspired when I read how David responded immediately, reflexively when Nathan
told him how he had messed up with Bathsheba. Immediately, he said: “I have
sinned against the Lord! (2Samuel 12:13)”
No excuses. No fibs. No crafty speech.
My Pastor once told us
that “when you steal something, you know what you are ‘gaining’, but you can
never know what you are losing (Proverbs
28:13). How true! The same applies here.
Perhaps this will help:
·
If
you know that you will have to lie about it, avoid doing it. This
applies to many scenarios including having a physical or emotional extra-
marital affair, double dating while single, siphoning money that isn’t yours
and signing the attendance register at work or first timers’ slip in a church. State
on the slip that you do not wish to be contacted rather than put false contact information.
Try to be punctual so you don’t sign with the time-zone of another country
·
When
you go wrong, own up and ask for forgiveness. You may not be
able to get out of the painful repercussions of your sins/ mistake but paying
the price is much better than covering it up. And if people do not forgive you,
take humble solace in the fact that once you confess and repent, God forgives
you.
Lying
to Withhold Personal Information: The media use some words
loosely – saying “almost 300 lives were
lost”, when 226 died, about 300
gallons of urine found, when 210 was found. I refuse to talk about why any gallon
of urine was found at all but you get the idea. Although it comes close, the media’s
use of word is not what this type of falsehood is about. It is the one that
extremely nosey people drive us into committing. I am making an excuse here.
I hate it when people poke
into my stuff especially when I don’t think that they have that kind of relationship with me. Sometimes it is funny how a
random acquaintance wants to know exactly
how much I earn (about so so amount isn’t good enough for them).
Nosey people can be
irritating but let no one drive you into iniquity. Sometimes, I have to tell
people that I don’t want to talk about ‘it’. They may not like it but that’s
much better. Plus now that I think about it, if you cannot respect my decision
to keep my privacy, what kind of relationship do we have here?
On this note, I implore
you to also become conscious of poking people for personal information. You may
be bullying them emotionally or pushing them into the sin of falsehood. Study to
mind your own business.
Either way, may The God of
all Grace keep us from error and falsehood in speech, in thought and in actions
Keep these words in mind, and become more like Him- one blog post at a time.
I leave you in God’s care,
Ms.
August
Is there anything i left out in this post as regards these variants of falsehood. Is there anything you know others can learn from you? Please feel free to share with us in the comments section.
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