Tuesday; July 1

“Therefore, laying aside falsehood, speak truth each one of you with his neighbor, for we are members of one another.” (Ephesians 4:25) seems pretty straightforward, doesn’t it?  Telling the truth is such a simple concept that we expect it from our children.  However, have you noticed how much we struggle with this as a society?  From our one-on-one discussions to what is presented by our national and international media, we often have a problem speaking the truth.  Interestingly, I think that we have become so wary of untruthfulness that we often expect it.  All too often, we may be more surprised when people tell the truth than when they lie.  That is a shame.

As I thought about this, I got thinking about the old adage, “What is truth?”.  As I pondered this, I concluded that truth comes in two phases:  First, we must relate the facts.  The most outright lie is the one where someone tells a deliberate untruth.  In other words, they intentionally lie.  Yet, the other way of deceiving someone is where the information is misrepresented.  Either through omission, misrepresentation or innuendo one person intentionally deceives another.  We might try to candy-coat it, but even if we don’t out-and-out tell a lie, when our intent is to deceive, we might as well be telling a big whopper! 

Let’s be transparent in what we communicate.  Let’s be truthful in our words and clear in our objective.  When we do this, not only will our words be obvious, so will our intentions.

Think About It!