Why I Lie

I've got to be honest--I've done a lot of lying in my life!

Even after years of being a Christian and a follower of the one who said "I am the way, the TRUTH, and the life." I find that many times I have more in common with the one who is called "The Father of lies". Sometimes I don't mean to lie. Like when I said a few days ago that I would start updating my blog more frequently. I really meant it, but did it happen? NooOOoo.

Why is it so easy to lie? I am sure there are many theological reasons about sin, the falliness of man, etc. that explain this but I can easily speculate why it is easy for ME to. I want to make a disclaimer though, that I am not proud of lying and in fact I am ashamed and want to change.

LAZINESS
First off, I have a problem of just telling people what they want to hear because it would take more work to confront them with the truth or something I perceive as a problem. In fact, I may not even be doing nothing more than just nodding in a conversation and keeping silent. But this often leads to problems because if I don't raise any objections when someone is talking then they may be led to believe that I am in agreement with them when I, in fact, am not. Then the next time they bring up the subject they start where they left off and assume I am in agreement. So how far do I let this go before I say something? Or do I just hedge my responses to be ambiguous? Sometimes I have just given in and lied.

FEAR
My laziness is also mixed with fear. What will the other person think of me if I disagree with them? What if I have to tell somebody something they don't want to hear (even if it is the right thing to do)? Sadly, I have let fear goad me into lying many times.

I remember when I was in 6th grade and as part of an English class, I was supposed to keep a daily journal. I didn't care for homework and I thought the journal was stupid so I didn't do it. My English teacher noticed that I had done poorly on the journal the first time around and mentioned something to my Mom who was also a teacher. So for the next semester, my Mom would frequently ask me if I was doing my journal for English class. I told her, "YES" but in reality I was not doing it at all. I justified telling her I was doing it because I PLANNED to do it, but I just hadn't done it yet. My plan was to stay up the night before it was due and write a bunch of entries using different pens, etc. and back-date it. However, the day came when it was due and I hadn't finished it, so I turned it in mostly incomplete. When my Mom found out that I hadn't done the journal she was incensed! In fact, there is not a word to describe how mad she was at me.

"What's the big deal?" I said to her, "I still have an A/B average in the class."

"Because you LIED to me!" she said. She could care less about the grade but she was hurt that she didn't know if she could trust me or anything I said anymore.

It was then that I began to realize the extent of hurt you can cause by lying and breaking someone's trust.

So why should you believe me now that I have told you this? Well, I use this blog as a tool to vent my honest thoughts and once they're public then I can be held accountable by my friends. So the next time you're talking with me you can ask me about my weight and how my diet is going or if you notice me nodding a lot and giving ambiguous responses you can say to me, "Tell me honestly what you really think, Barry."