God’s Honest Truth

There are six things the Lord hates—no, seven things he detests: haughty eyes, a LYING tongue, hands that kill the innocent, a heart that plots evil, feet that race to do wrong, a FALSE witness who pours out LIES, a person who sows discord in a family. Proverbs 6:16-19

This week a post I read on Facebook prompted me to think how many people are dishonest. I’ve known people who tell what they call “little white lies” as if their dishonesty is minimized in their mind, because they think being dishonest a little isn’t harmful. But a lie, is a LIE, IS A LIE! I’m not shouting at you, I just want people to see that there is no such thing as being a “little” lie or being a “little” dishonest. I know one person who told me that they had to lie to certain people because they were protecting them. My response was ‘protecting them from what?!’ Lying Never protects anyone, because you are introducing sin into a relationship, no matter who it is you’re trying to protect. That relationship is doomed, whether it is a friend or a family member. When did God put you in charge of protecting others from the truth? Actually, that particular person was manipulating a situation, because they didn’t want the other person to know what they were doing. If you feel the need to hide how you control your affairs, perhaps there are other areas that you are not being honest about. They were also trying to control the response of the other person. I’ve known parents who will lie to their kids because they have a preconceived idea of how the child will react if they know the truth. It only opened up a larger dilemma in that they had allowed their child to control the situation based on that child’s previous bad behavior. It was definitely an unhealthy situation, based on lies by both parties. One was lying based on poor behavior and the other was lying in an attempt to modify that behavior. No relationship can endure based on lies, because it dispels trust, which is integral for longevity in relationships.

Truthful words stand the test of time, but lies are soon exposed. Deceit fills hearts that are plotting evil; joy fills hearts that are planning peace! Proverbs 12:19-20 

Some annoying prefaces to a conversation are: “I’ll be honest with you …”; “Let me shoot straight now.”; (Like they weren’t any other time?) “To be perfectly honest…”; “God’s honest truth…”; “No lie…”; “I swear I’m telling the truth!”; “Regardless of anything else I’ve said before…” There are many others also, but when you hear this, be on guard! If a person has to persuade you that they are being honest by putting extended conditions on their statement(s), it shows their integrity or lack thereof. I thought honesty was free from deceit, not conditional.

The dictionary definitions of the word ‘honest’ are as follows:

Honest: 1. honorable in principles, intentions, and actions; upright and fair. 2. showing uprightness and fairness. 3. gained or obtained fairly. 4. sincere; frank. 5. genuine or unadulterated. 6. respectable; having a good reputation. 7. truthful or creditable.

If you look up the word “honest” in the thesaurus, the main definition is ‘truthful & candid.’ Some synonyms are: authentic, reliable, undisguised, on the up and up, genuine, virtuous, and trustworthy. To take it a step further, I looked up the word “honesty” (the act of being honest) in the thesaurus and the word that stood out to me was integrity! The definition of integrity is: ‘the state of being whole’ which leads me to what lying is… ‘incomplete.’ We are not complete in God, if we are dishonest. We can Never be complete in God, if we cannot be truthful.

An honest witness does not lie; a false witness breathes lies. Proverbs 14:5