Wednesday; August 5

Every once in a while, I will share an old saying from days gone by and here goes another one.  “An excuse is just a tissue-papered lie.”.   Now for those of you who aren’t familiar with “tissue paper”, we aren’t talking about bathroom tissue, rather it is that stuff what is added to baskets or boxes to make the gifts seem a little more special.  It’s sort of like upscale gift wrap.  When we were kids, you knew something was special if it came with tissue paper.  Another quality of tissue paper is that was thin and really didn’t disguise the gift.  It isn’t like Christmas wrapping paper that could actually conceal the identity of what it wrapped.  Now with this background, we can get back to the analogy.  An excuse is just a lie that sounds nicer than an out-and-out lie, but really doesn’t conceal the deceit.  In essence, when we make an excuse we are basically lying and hope that the other person will be so impressed by the language in which it is wrapped that they’ll accept our lie.  Excuse-making can become an easy habit to develop.  It doesn’t sound bad and makes us look better.  Yet, the truth is that it is still an intent to deceive others. 

Unfortunately, our society too readily accepts lying – from us and others.  However, God isn’t quite as cavalier about it.  In fact, the Bible says, “Therefore, laying aside falsehood, speak truth each one of you with his neighbor, for we are members of one another.”  (Ephesians 4:25).  You see, lying to one another isn’t pleasing to God, nor is it very neighborly to our fellow man.

Think About It!

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