Kristen and I preparing lunch for the team...


The remnants of Hurricane Gustav have arrived. Trees are bending over as if trying to reach their toes during morning calisthenics. Our daily temps of the 90's will drop 30 degrees today, and peak in the 60's. I like the 60's. I'm not a fan of the 90's. I'm talking about temperatures...not dates.

In the 60's I was a boy. By the time the 90's arrived, I was married with three children. I struggled during that latter era to figure out who I was.

On one hand I was a man in his 30's. On the other, I was very much still a boy at heart, who enjoyed childish things. I learned that I often related better to students during that time, than adults. I'm not sure much has changed.

One thing that troubles me in the lives of students and adults alike today, is how prevalent lying has become, and how often it is used in everyday circumstances.

Lying has become a coping mechanism for many. It is a routine part of how they view life and how they deal with other people. It begins in small ways and grows into life sized manifestations of gross misconduct.

We compartmentalize lies. We call them "little white lies." We call them "exaggerations." We act as if they really are harmless, and even tolerate them within our own homes. Too many of our children grow up learning our cultures concepts of untruths, embracing them and making them their own.

This is not limited to the secular world. It happens in Christian circles as well.

Exaggerations small and large happen everyday. Some are self serving. Some are for self protection. All are wrong.

I've heard exaggerations from pulpits, far too often. We have taken these friendly little examples in, and assigned a name to them... "ministerial license." We make it okay to say things that aren't true to make a point. I'm not talking about harmless made up stories, I'm talking about embellishing facts to have deeper impact on congregations. The end result becomes the objective, and whatever it takes to get people in the aisles is acceptable.

Really?

I recently talked to a minister's wife who asked me, "How do I respect my husband when I know he is lying from the pulpit?"

When we begin to confront lying, it gets very personal. Most of us have areas of our lives that we are being less than truthful about. When we do make attempts to deal with issues, we find it is much easier to step back in retreat than to forge ahead and correct wrongs. Fewer people get hurt, it seems, if we just let things ride.

We are yielding our culture to the enemy on the cusp of untruths.

We are lying to ourselves in the process and even believing that everything will be okay if we continue as is. Meanwhile, the enemy reclines in pleasure that we are so gullible.

We really need to surrender this area of our lives to our Lord. Only He can bring proper restoration.

We need to get back on track of making Truth the main thing.

The Truth can stand on it's own. It does not need our embellishments to make it true (or compelling). Moving a congregation was never intended to come through fabrication or manipulation.

It resides in the power of the Holy Spirit.

We just need to be faithful.

dad