“Keep me from lying to myself; give me the privilege of knowing your instructions.”

A documentary opened this last weekend in New York City titled, “(Dis)Honesty – The Truth About Lies”.  The premise comes from academic research that proves that big lies, told by people can be traced back to the person themselves fault line of having told many small, or white-lies, earlier in life.  This makes sense to me as we see when people fabricate their backgrounds like lying about their education and then throughout time they have to build on that lie until one day it catches up with them.  The documentary is to set us thinking about how important it is to be truthful in the small things, and to ourselves, so that we don’t end up in a pattern or habit of telling lies.  It’s usually never that someone decides in the big issues to be dishonest unless they have tried dishonesty in the past and it has worked out for them.  Once in the big “jam” they then default and tell another lie.  This is why it is important to nip dishonesty in the workplace in the bud and rid the culture of those who are dishonest.  It sounds harsh, but it is important on many levels.  So, if you see a co-worker who shades the truth in anything, no matter how small or insignificant, then be on the watch out because a major failure may soon be on the horizon.

“The reality is that we all have the potential of being bad”.  That is a quote from Dan Ariely, a professor and one on the film’s producers.  What he is saying is what we know; that we all are by nature sinners.  It is only through the mercy and grace of God that we are spared and allowed to be forgiven and try again to be better.  Yes, we all fall and make our mistakes and tell our “white lies”, but we don’t need a documentary (although it never hurts to remind ourselves of the damages that can be done by lying) to know that we are to live in and with only the truth.  We talk about the counter-culture that we must create and live in as believers and followers of Jesus.  We can start by being bearers of truth in all that we do.

Reference: Psalm 119:29 (New Living Translation)