Which Tire Is It?

From Our Daily Bread

One sunny day, four high school boys couldn’t resist the temptation to skip classes. The next morning they explained to their teacher that they had missed her class because their car had a flat tire. To their relief, she smiled and said, “well, you missed a quiz yesterday.” But then she added, “Take your seats and get out a pencil and paper. The first question is: Which tire was flat?”

No one gets away with lying. In Acts 5, Ananias and Sapphira thought they were lying only to Peter and the other believers. But the apostle said to them, “You have not lied to men but to God” (v.4).

Truth is one of the attributes of God. So when we tell a lie, we offend Him. And sooner or later He will uncover every falsehood—if not in this life, then at the final judgment, when we each give an account of ourselves to God (Romans 14:10-12).

We live in a highly competitive world, and sometimes we may be strongly tempted to shade the truth to get ahead. But the short-term gains from lying are worth little compared with the long-term benefits of telling the truth.

If you have deceived someone, confess it to that person and to the Lord. It may be humbling, but it’s the first step to restoring integrity in your life. –Dennis De Haan

If you always tell the truth, you will never be trapped in a lie.

Sometimes the truth bites, stings and crushes us. We have all been lied to and when the truth is eventually revealed, it causes such a deep pain and distrust.

We have all lied to someone. Perhaps we wanted to spare them the pain we are well aware of or maybe we are trying to escape pain ourselves. Why is it so hard to be truthful? Even the little white lies aren’t little at all.

In RivKids, we drew a scale from 1 to 10 and told stories with different lies in them. We then asked the kids where the lie fell. If it was a little lie, the kids were to give it a rating of 1. If it was a big lie, the kids were to give it a 10. In the end, all of the lies, little and huge, were rated as a 10 because that is how God sees it: a lie is a lie is a lie.

Because we have been the victim and the criminal we know both sides. I am not perfect. When I have been squeezed, I’ve lied. My lies are always revealed to teach me a lesson. A friend of mine recently did something deceitful. It wasn’t malicious, it wasn’t premeditated. It was an error of judgment. When confronted about his actions, my friend could have lied but he didn’t. He risked his career when he admitted the truth. He risked his reputation. In fact, when I found out he told the truth, my jaw dropped. I don’t know if I could have done the same. It is my weakness to hide from the truth sometimes. But this friend of mine has taught me a lesson. By committing the deceitful act, he may have caused people to second-guess his morals but by admitting the truth, he restored his integrity.