The Closet Professor

The truthful lip shall be established forever, but a lying tongue is but for a moment.

—Proverbs 12:19

Over the years, I have had to deal with unscrupulous and disingenuous individuals, deceitful business practices, and those who attempt scam us for their personal gain. Other than losing someone you love, I think it’s one of the hardest things in life. Sometimes, we are able to see through the lies immediately and can do something about it.

Politicians lie to us every day, just look at a certain former president of the United States who lost an election by millions of votes, yet he continues to claim that the more than 7 millions of votes he lost by are fraudulent. Many in his party even support this lie. We all know that politicians are going to lie to get elected. I am skeptical of all politicians, because I don’t think any of them are completely honest all the time. However, we are able to vote against the ones who tell the most grievous and/or dangerous lies.

The internet has become a major source of modern day lies. We all get spammed by emails everyday phishing for our information and attempting to defraud us. Usually, spam emails are easy to spot and be marked as spam, and most email programs will even attempt to filter out spam messages. If you use dating apps, there are so many scammers, and you constantly have to look scrupulously at people on dating apps to see the signs of a scammer. Social media is constantly full of lies and misleading information. We have to be vigilant against such falsehoods and scams, but again, we can usually avoid these lies by paying attention to what we read.

But the lies that harm us on a personal level are the hardest to deal with. I think the most harmful is probably when loved ones lie to you, especially when your partner cheats on you. Luckily, I have never had to deal with that, but I’ve also had few long term relationships in my life. What can also be the most disheartening is when we trust someone in our lives maybe it’s someone you hired to work with you who turns out to not to be the person they led you to believe they were, or it’s someone you conduct business with that you find have lied to you.

John 8:31-32 says, “So Jesus said to the Jews who had believed him, ‘If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.’” Sadly though, while the “truth will set you free,” it’s not something that comes quickly, and sometimes, it comes at great cost. There is a expression that may originate in a book written by Anthony Weldon in 1651, The Court and Character of King James: “The Italians having a Proverb, ‘He that deceives me once, it’s his fault; but if twice, it’s my fault.’” In other words, we have to learn from our mistakes.

None of us want to go through life constantly worried that someone is deceiving us. I haven’t often been in the position of being in the hiring decision process, though it’s become more frequent in the last several years. The first several times I was part of the hiring process, did not turn out well as I’d hoped. I misjudged the people. With one, the top job candidates was discovered to be a nightmare to work with before they were hired, and another one fooled me completely, and I’ve regretted trusting that the person was being genuine. They turned out to be the opposite of what they seemed. Now, I feel like I’ve lost my confidence in deciding on who is genuinely honest and who is good at playing a part by telling us what we want to hear.

The other lie I’m dealing with at the moment is because I trusted someone in an oral agreement, when I should have had it written on paper to have the proof I needed. I worked for an attorney for years, and I should have known not to take someone’s word for something but to make sure I got it in writing. In my defense, I was in an exceedingly difficult situation, and I felt trusting this person was my only option. Now, I feel like an idiot.

I don’t want to go through life never being able to trust anyone, but I’ve learned too many times, and to my detriment, that just because I’m an honest person, not everyone else is. Thankfully, I do have some very genuine people in my life that I can always count on to be honest and supportive. They are the ones who I believe were heaven sent.

I just pray that the world at large will one day be a more honest place. Sadly, I doubt it ever will be, but we can do something about it. Just as we can live our lives as model Christians, we can also make sure that we are also truth tellers. We may not always receive honesty in return, but if we are truthful, the truth will set us free. That freedom may only come in the next life, but if we live our lives by the Golden Rule, “whatever you want men to do to you, do also to them” (Matthew 7:12), our reward will be greater than anything that we can experience on this earth.