Liar, Liar, Pants on Fire

Walter and Tessa are in trouble. The body of their relationship is dead and decomposing. Trust was lost a long time ago. Tessa is angry, critical, and likely bitter. She’s not being honest with herself about the historic wounds she’s carrying around that form the genesis of the pain she directs at Walter. All Tessa’s willing to acknowledge is that Walter is checked out, which has left her carrying the motherload operating and maintaining a home with three children.

 

As for Walter, he’s not being honest with Tessa. He’s deeply hurt and frustrated that despite his best efforts to help Tessa and the kids, all he really hears from Tessa is how he’s not doing things right. Walter’s a people-pleaser and craves affirmation, but he’s getting none of that from Tessa. He’s afraid of Tessa’s reactions, so rather than engage her to help Tessa work through her pain, Walter has shut down and is increasingly fantasizing about life apart from Tessa.

 

Neither Walter nor Tessa are being honest with their spiritual family, either. In reaction to having been burned before by gossip in a previous church, Tessa and Walter have closed their doors to any possible help outside themselves. No one, not their small group leaders, not any of their pastors, nor any of their friends at church, suspect anything is on fire in the Mitty home.  

 

When I’m talking with clients or leading a class in which trust is the main focus, I am clear to say that while there are many ways to break or lose trust with someone, there’s no bigger trust-breaker than telling a lie. And here’s a burning truth that’s hard for us to admit: all of us tell lies.

 

If you don’t think you have a problem with lying, then take an honest look at the topic in Christian Scripture. For example, the Ninth Commandment is expressly about lying as the thing prohibited and truth-telling as the thing required (Exodus 20:16). Would God have codified this if we didn’t have a problem with telling the truth? Numbers 23:19 says, “God is not human, that he should lie, not a human being, that he should change his mind. Does he speak and then not act? Does he promise and not fulfill.” Which looks and sounds to me that if you’re not God, you have a problem with lying.

 

Where, exactly, might we have a problem with lying and not telling the truth? Here’s a quick scan of the moral landscape for where you might be lying and in need of some truth-telling.

 

Tell the truth to yourself about God. This goes back to the garden of Eden, where Satan’s first and lasting assault on humankind was a lie about the character of our Creator. Sufferers are tempted to tell lies to themselves about how small God is, while those who are prospering are tempted to believe that God is not that big. Cue Søren Kierkegaard’s observation, “There are two ways to be fooled. One is to believe what isn’t true; the other is to refuse to believe what is true.”

 

Tell the truth about yourself to God. Practice and experience Psalm 32. Some people are more willing to share their troubles with others than they are with God. There’s some therapeutic benefits in doing that, but no one can bear your burdens and forgive your sins like God can—wholly, through-and-through, eternally.

 

Tell the truth to yourself about yourself. This could work either way: you’re not being honest with yourself about how bad off you really are, or you’re not being honest with yourself that you’re not as bad off as you’re telling yourself. I see both kinds of people in my office. Some people are in denial about their condition while others actively “suppress the truth” about their sin (Romans 1:18). Others beat themselves up with an over-active and scrupulous conscience, falsely accusing themselves based on self-imposed arbitrary standards of righteousness.

 

Tell the truth to yourself about another. Is there someone in your life that’s wreaking havoc and crazy-making? Are they steamrolling you while you keep hoping beyond hope that they’re going to change? Maybe you need to get honest with yourself that they’re not going to change.

 

Tell the truth about yourself to another. After nearly three decades of sitting in the counselor’s chair, I’ve noticed that women tend to be more honest with me than men. Call it ego, pride, or shame-sensitivities, men have a much harder time being transparent in front of other men. People-pleasers also lie habitually by not sharing what they’re thinking for fear of conflict, rejection, or the amount of emotional expenditure such truth-telling will cost them.

 

I’ll note here that God does not grow His children ad hoc; He uses what we call “the means of grace” to grow and change us. One such means is the mutual encouragement, confession, and exhortation of one another. Hebrews 3:12-13 appears to be ironic in that the nature of sin is deceitfulness, or lying, and one means we use to combat that is to be honest with one another about our struggles with sin.

 

Tell the truth about another to another. This point requires discernment. For obvious reasons. Question 112 of the Heidelberg Catechism provides helpful guidance here, which states, in part, “‘What is God’s will for you in the ninth commandment?’ The answer, ‘God’s will is that I never give false testimony against anyone, twist no one’s words, not gossip or slander, nor join in condemning anyone without a hearing or without a just cause. And I should do what I can to guard and advance my neighbor’s good name’.”

 

Counselors and others in positions of help have to be especially careful here. It’s very tempting to render judgments when hearing only one person’s side of the story. Convincing as a person may sound, and with pain so obviously a part of one person’s life, our responses still have to be cautious or qualified. “With what I know, it sounds like….” “In principle, you might consider….”

 

Truth-telling, done well, takes love, grace, and courage. It should be a characteristic of Christ-followers. To live up to that standard in this newsletter, I should tell you that some of the Tell the truth categories above are from a 2015 article in Forbes magazine entitled, “Five Types of Truth Telling.”

 

Because we are to, “Speak everyone truth with his neighbor” (Ephesians 4:25).