Always The Best Policy

Proverbs 12:19

If you’ve ever looked someone in the eye and wondered if they were telling the truth, then you understand the uneasy feeling it creates. Sometimes, of course, it’s easy to tell when a person is lying, like when a child blurts out, “It wasn’t me!” Even if people don’t outright lie to you, but just “shade the truth,” is that any less deceptive? Maybe the consequences are less severe for a child with cookie crumbs on their mouth than a man with blood on his hands, but neither is without deceit. The acorn of deception may not always grow into an oak, but it still has all the same DNA—whether we plan to lie or it just pops out when we’re caught off guard. The value God places on truthfulness has always been made plain in the Bible. The power of truth is that it lasts. It’s eternal because it comes from the very nature of God. Jesus claimed to be “the truth” and promised that “the truth will make you free.” God wants us to live in truth and the Truth will live in us.