Lies & Honesty
I lied. He lied. She lied. Everyone lied. Every lie has a reason behind it - sometimes for convenience and sometimes for hiding (covering up) our sin. The former is not very interesting, as it "usually" doesn't cause too much damage in terms of spiritual growth, the latter is more worthy to be put into discussion as it affects our relationship with God.
For people who knew that they have sinned against God, they naturally would hide (cover up) their fault because they are ashamed and "maybe" regretted. I am not saying lies and being dishonest are right. Feeling shameful is the first step of sin awakening. Usually the very first reaction towards or behaviour of shame is cover-up and/or acting innocent.
I deduced that sin hiding is an in-born behaviour. When I was in kindergarten, each child at my school received a chocolate Easter egg. I brought it home and showed it to mom. Mom told me to put it into the fridge, and save it for later. While mom was having her afternoon nap, I kept on opening the fridge’s door a few times to look at the chocolate egg. The temptation of eating was so great that I couldn’t overcome. I unwrapped it and started eating it, and then I heard my mom woke up. I ran to the apartment door gate and threw it into the foyer. Mom kind of asked me what was going on. I told her the boy next door ate my chocolate egg! What a ridiculous and irrational lie, anyway I was covering up my sin with lies even when I was only 4-5 years old.
Actually, one can easily relate "lies covering up sins behaviours" with words from the Bible:
Adam & Eve (The fall of man)...
Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves.
Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the LORD God as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and they hid from the LORD God among the trees of the garden.
But the LORD God called to the man, "Where are you?"
He answered, "I heard you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid."
(Genesis 3:7-10)
Cain and Abel (World first murder case)...
Now Cain said to his brother Abel, "Let's go out to the field." And while they were in the field, Cain attacked his brother Abel and killed him.
Then the LORD said to Cain, "Where is your brother Abel?" "I don't know," he replied. "Am I my brother's keeper?"
(Genesis 4:8-9)
Adam & Eve instead of directly confronting their offense to God, they "made coverings for themselves". Adam "was afraid" and "hid".
When God asked Cain for his brother Abel, Cain did not only lie with the phrase: "I don't know", he even dare to question God: "Am I my brother's keeper?"
Of course, God as being God, He knew everything. He knew they are lying, but never dwelled on the issue of their lies and being dishonest. God confronted them with punishment that men would be separation from God (Adam and Eve were banished from the Garden of Eden / Cain is hidden from God's presence), and IMMEDIATELY God addressed / prophesized the way for men to reconcile their relationship with Him, which is through Messiah:
"And I (God) will put enmity between you (the serpent) and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he (Jesus Christ) will crush your head, and you will strike his heel."
(Genesis 3:15)
From here we observe that God sees our relationship with Him and our souls towards eternity are above all things. Lies are worldly matters allow us to wake up from our sins. Lying is a process of awakening from sins. Of course, we have to wake up from our sins, and admitted our sins through Jesus Christ for forgiveness. (Our God is a dynamic God. He doesn't go back to count number of lies. He always moves forward and looks for reconciliation between God and men.)
"Like water spilled on the ground, which cannot be recovered, so we must die. But God does not take away life; instead, he devises ways so that a banished person may not remain estranged from him."
(2 Samuel 14:14)
On the other hand, I would be extra-carefully when a person confronted his/her wrong doings directly to me all in one shot - all at once without missing / hiding every detail of it, with a taste of "boosting" his/her honesty while confronting. Because such "all-in-one-shot" behaviour is really lack of shame, very much out of ordinary process of sinned, awakening, shame, denial/lies, gradually admitting his/her sin, then hopefully reconciliation with God through Christ; as described in the Bible. I would suspect there might be a cunning dark side or purpose of such "honesty" - holding the information for extortion, and generating damage of other people's relationships. I certainly hope I am wrong on the later case, but I would be cautious... If I know this person for a period of time, I will try to re-collect more incidents for further analysis - would the person put on lying mask when lie is working for his/her side, but put on honesty mask when honesty is working for his/her side? I will also consider if such person always "boost" his/her "honesty" as a "marketing scheme" for "achieving personal desires".
I wish our social world is simple, unfortunately it is complex: honesty can be lies for more lies, lies can be lies for more honesty boosting... the origin of politics, social games and bureaucracy. Anyway, being Christians, we need to be smart like a fox, but keep our heart pure like a sheep – knew the darkness but choose to be with the true light. Sometimes, I found that very challenging myself.
