Be a Lover of the Truth

Liars lie.  Why?  Because they are liars.  

Telling a lie doesn't make you a liar.  Being a liar is why you tell lies.  It's part of a persons moral (or immoral) fiber.  You sowed it, you cultivated it, and you reaped what you sowed.  You have to discover the part of your character that has allowed lying to become acceptable and kill that root, or you might as well plan on being a liar forever.

Lying is indicative of disrespect, rebelliousness, and laziness.  How people get to that point has as many routes as there are people, but we are all responsible to deal with it the same way.  Stop it.  Stop lying.  Do not be a liar.

Liars are disrespectful.  They disrespect themselves and others.  If you lie to me it's an immediate sign that you have no respect for me or my time and you place no value on any relationship you might have had with me for whatever time we spend in each other's company.  I'm done trying to communicate with you.  What, exactly, would be the point in it?  Grandad used to say, "A liar's worse than a thief or a murderer.  You can lock your door against a thief and arm yourself against a murderer, but you can't do a thing to stop a liar."  I can't stand a liar.  No one can.

Lying is practicing disrespect for yourself, as well.  You may have convinced yourself that it's alright on some level, but lying is wrong, and no matter who tries to sell this whole bill of goods about moral absolutes being a thing of the past, and situational ethics, "little white lies," blah, blah, blah...  your heart knows you have lied, it knows why, and it also knows that it's not right to do so.  The more you practice something the better you become at it, so, over time as you lie, you become more disrespectable in your own eyes, and eventually, in the eyes of others.  The more you disrespect yourself the easier it is to lie some more, and the viscous cycle has begun.  You have become a liar.  Now you will lie because you are a liar.

It all started back when you were to lazy to tell the truth.  Yes, it's that cut and dried.  Situations, circumstances and players may change, but the underlying cause cause for lying is laziness.  It is actually fear, but unwilling to face the fear,  you take the lazy route.  It would be too uncomfortable to face the possible repercussions of being honest, so you take the lazy way out and lie. You might be embarrassed, ridiculed, judged, criticized, even punished, or maybe you only THINK you might, but it was enough to cause you to abandon truth and stoop to lying, because it will just be, well, easier.

Now your rebellious nature cranks up it's rhetoric to cover, even if it's only in your own head.  You have your reasons.  You can even paint them in such a way as to make them look as if it were the generous, kind or even right thing to do.  You can reason that it spares trouble where it doesn't need to be, or that no one would ever know or care, so why bring it up?  Rebellion that speaks softly, kindly and subtly in the beginning is still rebellion.  Reasons, rationalizations: call them what you will, they are excuses, and excuses do not release your conscience from knowing there is a truth and you chose to lie.  Be careful; rebellion will eventually over ride your conscience if you allow it.

Eventually these lazy liars who lie will become belligerent and flaunt their "rights" in everyone's face.  It's disrespectful to decent people everywhere to put them in a position to have to deal with someone like you.  Decent people in decent society should not have to encounter and possibly be made to confront a blatant liar.  It's very uncomfortable for them.  It's not packaged into the regular guy's manual of how to deal with people to confront someone who can't be held to any ethical standards.  If we confront you, you want proof.  You demand honest accusations to your lie.  Decent people feel the need to supply it.  They feel they can't say anything to you without proof.

*For the record, I do not.  I'll confront you and call you out right now.  Just so ya know.  ;)

It is easy to be a liar when you have compromised your morals.  When you have no commitment to what is true you can excuse a lot.  Commitment is practically a thing of the past.  People can't commit to be at a job on time.   They won't commit to things as important as marriage or parenting, so why would they be expected to commit to being honest where no one will know or see?  The truth can be hidden, stretched, colored, twisted, manipulated, "reinvented" and even screamed over, but eventually everyone has to face it again.  Even a liar.  

After all that you've done and cost yourself, do not lie to your child.  Lying to your children is not only disrespectful, but it forms a foundation that is unfit to build anything stable upon.  All the Dr. Spock-isms and self-esteem building techniques you try are going to fail if you, even you, the parent, don't have enough respect for them to be honest.  No amount of good publicity, no positive reinforcement, no expensive photo-shoot, no counselling session, no gift, no noble excuse making or championing their cause, no good report, no pharmaceutical, no compliment, nor any new thing dreamed up to bolster the little feller's self image is going to help your precious child live a full and confident life if you don't have the hair on your back to be honest with him.  It's all only going to serve to make him selfish, spoiled and obnoxious, and still remain unfulfilled and unstable.

Stop.  Stop now.  You may be laying low, keeping quiet, suffering alone  You may have broken trust with everyone you know.  You may be famous for being a liar.  You may not have another soul in your corner anymore, but it isn't too late.  There is first and foremost forgiveness in Jesus, and secondly, He can help you turn it around.  He can make things better, in fact, abundantly above all that you could have asked or thought would ever come out of the mess you made.  You can be known as the most honest person in town.  You could be recognized as everyone's go to guy.  You just have to find it in yourself to make one commitment.  Just one:

Be a lover of the truth.

A lover of the truth does not have a problem with lies.  Be honest .  Tell the truth on purpose.  Make commitments on purpose.  Keep your word on purpose.  Don't take the lazy road out when the pressure comes.  Develop and cultivate honor.  Honor is part of who you are, it's a character trait, part of your moral fiber, not just a thing you do.
Be a lover of the truth.

Commit.

"People hate the truth. Luckily, the truth doesn't care."