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<\/a><\/p>\nI always considered myself honest, and I had a lot of pride attached to that. I had a boss once who would stare you in the eye and just flat-out lie \u2014 I mean on the level of \u201cThe sky is green.\u201d \u2014 daring you to challenge him. No one would, and we\u2019d move forward as a company based on the sky being green. I was never that kind of liar. <\/p>\n
As a teenager, when my friends snuck out at night or created cover stories of sleepovers and studying, I simply disobeyed my parents and accepted the consequences. <\/p>\n
But there are other kinds of lies. <\/p>\n
Let\u2019s say you invited me to a dinner party and I had no intention of going. Odds are I\u2019d say, \u201cI\u2019ll try to make it.\u201d You\u2019d get enough food and refreshments to include me. I\u2019m not saying I\u2019m that important, but if we\u2019re close then during the party you might have a nagging hope I\u2019d make it \u2014 and a quietly growing frustration with me for not showing up. By avoiding the slight awkwardness of the moment when you invited me, I might have caused lingering damage to our friendship. <\/p>\n
I used to surround myself with untrustworthy friends. We\u2019d profess undying devotion and then never show up for each other. It let me off the hook for being untrustworthy myself. But these days, I want to live with all my cards on the table. <\/p>\n
I want to speak plainly about lying. Is it ever OK? My gut reaction is no. But it\u2019s interesting how quickly this can get messy. <\/p>\n
Let your \u2018yes\u2019 mean yes<\/h2>\n
There\u2019s a saying: If you want to have self-esteem, do estimable acts. You cannot force someone to trust you. But you can choose to be honest, and when you are consistently honest with others, you gain their trust. <\/p>\n
In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus expands the Commandment to not bear false witness against a neighbor into a ban on making all oaths. He concludes with a statement that, when I first read it long ago, jumped off the page and burned itself onto my heart: \u201cLet your \u2018Yes\u2019 mean \u2018Yes,\u2019 and your \u2018No\u2019 mean \u2018No.'\u201d (Matthew 5:37) <\/p>\n
The footnote in the New American Standard Bible bluntly explains: \u201cJesus demands of his disciples a truthfulness that makes oaths unnecessary.\u201d Quakers and Mennonites refuse to swear under oath to tell the truth, because to do so would suggest that without the oath, they might not. <\/p>\n