We tell white lies.

We tell big lies.

We web lies.

We tell lies we think won’t matter because they’re only a prank.

We tell lies to set someone up for a surprise.

They’re all lies. Go ahead and try to justify them.

Lies cause people to look foolish. You set someone up to fall for your lie. They trust you; they believe your lie. And they look foolish. You cause others to laugh at them because of your lie.

Recently, a prank was pulled on me. A genius prank. A funny prank. Until it became a lie. When people lied to my face. When others that knew the truth refused to tell me because people thinking them a loud mouth was worth more than me looking like a fool. People that weren’t even involved in the prank played along, all at my expense. My friends. My good friends. My best friends. They took advantage of my trust.

I sat in class this morning, becoming angry that the people I trusted the most had deceived me. I thought back to multiple conversations in the past weeks that had been filled with lies and deception. Yeah, they were just for a joke. But they were laughing at my expense.

And yet, as I sat thinking about all this I fell to the same thing I was angered about.

The teacher asked “What time is it?” to our class.

I automatically looked at my phone clock, added 10 minutes and responded to her.

With a lie. With the intent to deceive her. Unintentionally, making her look like a fool in front of the whole class.

She asked another student; they gave her the correct time.

“So I’ve caught you in a lie,” she said jokingly.

But she had.

The same thing that had been done to me, and had caused me so much distress, I easily sinned against her with. Automatically. Without any pre-thought.

No matter how small the lie was, I had still lied. I was still guilty of sin.

The fact that it came so naturally was upsetting to me.  

Why do we as a Christian community tolerate this in our relationships?

Colossians 3:9 says “Do not lie to each other…”

We have a safe community together. We have trust and depth and vulnerability. And yet, we can easily divide that trust with our words and actions a like. Our lies cause division. Our lies cause the Holy Spirit to slow down. He wants to move and make great things happen in his name through us, but we put a yield sign in the process.

We divide our own community with lies.

So, lets knock it off.

Lets stop lying to each other. To anyone.

Lets tell the truth.

Lets get our crap together so we can do work for the Lord.