The Power of We, Part 2: Lying

Bible Verse of the Day: 

^"Don’t lie to each other, for you have stripped off your
old sinful nature and all its wicked deeds."

Colossians 3:9 

Anthony looked at his watch. Yikes! It was already six o'clock. His wife was going to go ballistic! She knew he got out of work at four. But he had stopped by his friend Eddie's house and had lost track of time. Oh, well. He'd just tell her he had a late meeting. Or that there was an accident on the way home and he got stuck in traffic...

Melissa stared at the bill in horror. Three hundred dollars? For a pair of shoes? What had she been thinking? There was no money in their budget for such an extravagance, even though at the time she had felt she deserved to treat herself. How was she going to explain this to Manny? He was going to flip! Maybe she could just take it out of their savings. It's not like he would ever know. She'd replace the money as soon as she could...

Do any of these scenarios sound familiar? Yeah, it's called lying. Don't roll your eyes! A lie is a lie, no matter how big or small. And if you've ever lied to your spouse -- even if it's what you believe to be a small, "white" lie, then you need to have a seat and keep reading...

A lot of you out there are probably snickering and sucking your teeth, thinking that white lies are perfectly acceptable, especially if it's about small stuff that's not really all that important. "Everybody lies," you're probably saying. And you know what? You might be right. We lie to our parents. We lie to our teachers. We lie to our boss. We lie to our doctor. We even lie to the IRS. (Come one now, you know you didn't really give that money to charity.) We've had a lifetime of telling fibs and little "white lies," so when we get involved in a relationship we simply carry over our bad habits, thinking it's okay to lie to our spouse, too. Especially if it's just about little, unimportant things, right?

Wrong!

Let's take a look at this little word: lie. According to Dictionary.com, a lie is "a false statement made with deliberate intent to deceive." Okay. Now let's look at the definition of the word deceive. It means to dupe, to fool, to hoodwink, to defraud, to entrap, to ensnare, to betray.

Wow. That doesn't sound like such a little, unimportant thing to me.

You see, the problem with these little lies is that eventually, they'll turn into something else. Once you get into the habit of lying, you do so without conscience. Some people do it almost without thinking. They don't want to get into an argument, so they lie about having walked the dog. They don't want their husband to freak out, so they lie about how much they actually spent on that new bag. And the more they lie, the more practice they get. They even get to the point where they get good at it. So when a bigger, more serious situation arises, most won't hesitate to weave all those little lies into a big, fat one. And that's when things start going downhill...fast.

You see, it takes a long time to build up trust between two people, especially if either one of them are coming from a previous relationship where there was a lot of hurt involved. It's not easy to lay your heart on the line for someone else and yet it's such a wonderful thing when you feel that you have absolutely nothing to fear or worry about with your spouse because you know you can trust them. 

But what happens when you find out that your spouse has lied? Even if it's about dumb things? Well, that trust is shattered. In a moment. A second. The seeds of doubt have been planted and you begin to question everything. Now you're suspicious. Now you're often left wondering. Was she really late from work? Or was she with some other dude? Was he really stuck in traffic after he dropped of his daughter? Or did he spend that extra time talking to his clingy ex-wife?

Proverbs 6 says that not only does God hate lies, it's an abomination to him. He abhors it. He loathes it, He detests it. It's vile and shameful and to use words that everybody can get: God can't stand it!

So if God detests lies, why would you willingly tell them? Especially to someone who you claim to love?

I know that a lot of you are thinking that your little "white" lies don't mean anything. Or that it's just your way to avoid an argument. Or that it's just not a big deal. But I have a news flash for you, buddy: it is! Because although you might be avoiding an argument today, you're only setting yourself up for bigger problems tomorrow when your wife finds out you lied and she no longer trusts you.

Besides, if you feel the need to lie, then maybe it's because what you're doing makes you feel uncomfortable or guilty. And if you're feeling that, then maybe you shouldn't be doing whatever it is that you're about to lie about in the first place. Like those porno magazines she found yesterday in the back of your closet. You know you shouldn't have them to begin with (it's why you felt the need to hide them!). So get rid of them. Now. And what about that time when you didn't pick up the phone because you were supposedly on a business lunch? Did you tell your husband that it was with that cute co-worker of yours whose always flirting with you? No? Why not? Because you know you shouldn't have been with him in the first place! 

Proverbs 25:18 says that "Like a club and a sword and a sharp arrow is a man who bears false witness..." If you've ever gotten hit over the head with a club or gotten stabbed in the gut with a sword or a sharp arrow, then you know that it hurts. A lot. God is comparing the physical hurt of these wounds with the emotional hurt that lying causes another person. And if you've ever been lied to, then you know that sometimes emotional pain hurts even more than the physical kind.

So whether you call them little, white lies or fibs, fudging the truth or tall tales, half-truths or omission of the facts, they are all one and the same. Don't try to deceive your spouse in order to cover up your mistakes, your frailties, or your weaknesses. Because at the end of the day, that's exactly what you're doing. You might say you're trying to avoid an argument, or you didn't think much of it, or even worse -- you're trying to "protect" your spouse by not hurting them, but that's a bunch of mumbo-jumbo and you know it. You need to deal with those mistakes and weaknesses first. Don't make things worse by lying all the time about them.

The power of WE is about you and your spouse working as a team throughout your marriage. And teammates don't lie to each other. They depend on each other and in order to do that, they have to trust each other. With their lives. With their finances. With their everything. Lying will only help to break down those ties that you've worked so hard to build with eachother. So don't do it. Whether it's about the small stuff or the big stuff. Remember: a lie is a lie, no matter what the size.

John 8:44 tells us that Satan is "the father of lies" and that when you lie you are simply "carrying out his desires." Don't be included as part of his family. Instead, work on being a part of God's family. If you've lied in the past, ask Him to forgive you. Then go and ask your spouse for forgiveness. And ask the Lord to help you so that you don't fall into the temptation of lying again, no matter what the consequences. More importantly, ask Him to teach you how not to get yourselves into the very situations that would have prompted you to lie in the first place.

So don't deceive your wife. Don't betray your husband. Don't lie. Period. To quote an old saying: "A lie may take care of the present, but it has no future."

And continously lying to your spouse means your relationship has no future, either.