Small tales

I find it instructive, in daily Bible reading, to read from two or more sections of Scripture on the same day. Some plans divide the reading into OT/NT/Psalms and Proverbs, or History/Gospels/Wisdom Literature/Epistles, with a short passage from each section every day. The advantage is seeing connections among widely separated parts of Scripture I might have missed otherwise.

So, going through Genesis, I read the story of Jacob and Laban and their serial double-crossing. Then turning to Psalm 12, I read, “Everyone utters lies to his neighbor; with flattering lips and a double heart they speak.” And what do they say? “With our tongues we will prevail … who is master over us?” What we say to ourselves and others is our power. We use our words to shape reality, almost from the time we learn to speak. A 4-year-old, asked if he tracked mud through the kitchen: “No, that was my shoes.” A teenager, asked where she was last night: “At the library” (before her boyfriend picked her up there). To my mother, explaining why I was late for lunch: “I got an emergency phone call” (from a friend who wanted to dish on the pastor’s wife; it took a while).

We all lie, it seems to me: flat-out and from the side, steamrolling the truth or nibbling at it in artful, phrase-twisting ways. We lie for all kinds of reasons, too, and some may be justified (that’s a question for another time). But the most subtle, and the most damaging, is attempting to shape reality in a way that benefits us. God knows this; He works with it. “The older shall serve the younger,” He said of Esau and Jacob—not a prediction but a decree, an absolute truth He would bring about through a network of deceit.

What we say to ourselves and others is our power. We use our words to shape reality, almost from the time we learn to speak.

As media multiplies, so do half-truths, prevarications, and bald-faced falsehoods. After every State of the Union speech, for example, the fact-checkers emerge. Associated Press noted five major misstatements (to speak as politely as possible) in last month’s address. Are wages beginning to rise? Is Iran backing off its nuclear ambitions? Has the Obama administration set aside more public lands than previous administrations? Not exactly, says AP, but that was weeks ago and we’ve moved on. Prevarications from political figures are just something we expect now—even though, if the leader of the free world is shaping his own reality, we can also expect consequences for the free world.

But even little lies reap consequences—reality always pushes back. Last March, a New York Times piece called “The Surprisingly Large Cost of Telling Small Lies” caught my attention. The author, an investment advisor, asked a client about the secret of his success. She was expecting words about perseverance or boldness, but “the secret to success in business and in life is to never, ever, ever tell a lie.” Surprising indeed, but the more she thought about it the more her client’s claim made sense. She started watching her mouth, and was amazed how many little lies she told every day. Academic studies on the subject opened her eyes still further: 40 percent of people lie on their resumés, 90 percent on their online dating profiles; 30 percent about movies they’ve seen and books they’ve read, and so on.

It’s been a voyage of self-discovery for me, too. When the ugly sides of my personality stick out too much, I’ve always been prone to plaster them over with a reasonable-sounding excuse or an extenuating circumstance. If I do this often enough, the only person I’ll end up fooling is myself, and I will wonder why business and family arrangements don’t work out the way they’re supposed to. Can it be nobody trusts me?

“Behold, you delight in truth in the inward being” (Psalm 51:6). God will always work His purposes out; if we don’t make a straight path, He’ll use a crooked one. But far better for me to stop misrepresenting myself. Only then will He “teach me wisdom in the secret heart.”

Email jcheaney@wng.org