Lord, my Protector, do not kill them, or my people will forget. With Your power scatter them and defeat them. They sin by what they say. They sin with their words. They curse and tell lies, so let their pride trap them. Destroy them in Your anger. Destroy them completely!
Then they will know that God rules over Israel and to the ends of the earth. (Vs. 11-13)
Liars hate the people they hurt. Proverbs 26:28
"If you tell the truth, you don't have to remember anything." Mark Twain
I have met three pathological liars in my lifetime. I'm quite sure I have known more than three, but it takes a while to discover that a person's life is built on a house of cards. It is necessary to form a relationship with another to discover them more deeply. The shock of unearthing lies is that it redefines the other person and it makes a mockery of your trust. The ability to believe anything he or she says thereafter vanishes. Makes me want to check out everything I am told. Too much work. As a result, liars often go from relationship to relationship, friendship to friendship, job to job, because they use people up.
The first time I read the proverb above, I was shocked. Hate seems like such a strong word. I had just been wounded by a liar. Just begun recognizing her ability to con me at every turn. I thought she was a dear friend. Over countless hours I had listened to her troubles. She had regaled me with stories of her past. Taken my heart and my time. Used me. When it all unraveled, I felt dumb. Gullible. Exposed. That is why Proverbs 26 calls liars haters. It's like getting a birthday gift and when it is unwrapped discovering it to be empty. And the giver laughs at how stupid I was to expect a substantive present. You surely wouldn't even like someone you could humiliate like that.
Pride tells the liar he will not be caught. He is charming and quick-witted. A flatterer. So he or she builds up the prey with smooth words, priming her for the kill. "He is so nice. He couldn't be lying to me." The treachery is, obviously, the lied to has to separate the perceived person from the real. By that time, much damage might have been done. Standing alone and feeling beaten up, sometimes a whole life has to be remade. That is hate.
"Trap them in their lies!" then is quite an appropriate prayer. Why would anyone want another to experience the humiliation and defeat inherent in coming into contact with a liar? If you have, as I have, you best not forget. Honestly, it has made me vet my friends more closely. Ask better questions of the new people I meet. I don't want to forget how it was to be sucked into a liar's web. It has also made me more conscious of my own lies. I want God to immediately reprimand me for untruth. I don't want Him to let me get away with falsehoods.
There is another kind of lying I have noticed lately that is perhaps more treacherous because it doesn't look, on the surface, like lying. Keeping secrets. Not so much the kind that involve a heart-to-heart with a friend. But the kind that pride refuses to allow us to bring to light. It can ruin families. Destroy trust. Shame is usually at the root of such secrets, and it will drive us to cover our transgressions to the death. Lie about the abuse. Pretend there was no first marriage. Present a false self to our children out of fear they will not love the real. Other pretense must necessarily follow. Because the subterranean lie must never be revealed. When exposed, however - and it will ultimately be exposed - shame is multiplied and trust is lost. And standing in the midst of the fallen cards are husband, wife, children, close friends or co-workers bereft of you. Feeling cheated and angry.
No wonder lying is the first thing on the list of things God hates. It is false. He is Truth. It is my belief that shame is at the root of the liar's need to create a different self. The real one isn't good enough. It is the root of all addiction. Our Father must understand that because Jesus took our shame, killed it on the cross, and threw it forever into the abyss of hell at His resurrection. No need to carry it ourselves anymore. It can not only be for given, but,also, forgotten...removed from us as far as the east is from the west (Psalm 103). It doesn't have to hold us any longer. Lying to cover it adds more layers of guilt and shame until the burden is almost too much to bear.....or, sometimes, is too much to live with.
Continuing a life of pretense will ultimately bring destruction. God wants truth - inward and outward. He will judge it by one of two standards. The law that says the sinner will die for his or her sins or by the new covenant that promises our adoption as sons and daughters of a Father Who has made us joint hiers with Christ, His Only Begotten Son. A promise to us, sealed with the blood of Jesus, that our sins will be forgiven and remembered no more. ...Looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, Who, for the joy set before Him, endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God. Hebrews 12:2
Then they will know that God rules over Israel and to the ends of the earth. (Vs. 11-13)
Liars hate the people they hurt. Proverbs 26:28
"If you tell the truth, you don't have to remember anything." Mark Twain
I have met three pathological liars in my lifetime. I'm quite sure I have known more than three, but it takes a while to discover that a person's life is built on a house of cards. It is necessary to form a relationship with another to discover them more deeply. The shock of unearthing lies is that it redefines the other person and it makes a mockery of your trust. The ability to believe anything he or she says thereafter vanishes. Makes me want to check out everything I am told. Too much work. As a result, liars often go from relationship to relationship, friendship to friendship, job to job, because they use people up.
The first time I read the proverb above, I was shocked. Hate seems like such a strong word. I had just been wounded by a liar. Just begun recognizing her ability to con me at every turn. I thought she was a dear friend. Over countless hours I had listened to her troubles. She had regaled me with stories of her past. Taken my heart and my time. Used me. When it all unraveled, I felt dumb. Gullible. Exposed. That is why Proverbs 26 calls liars haters. It's like getting a birthday gift and when it is unwrapped discovering it to be empty. And the giver laughs at how stupid I was to expect a substantive present. You surely wouldn't even like someone you could humiliate like that.
Pride tells the liar he will not be caught. He is charming and quick-witted. A flatterer. So he or she builds up the prey with smooth words, priming her for the kill. "He is so nice. He couldn't be lying to me." The treachery is, obviously, the lied to has to separate the perceived person from the real. By that time, much damage might have been done. Standing alone and feeling beaten up, sometimes a whole life has to be remade. That is hate.
"Trap them in their lies!" then is quite an appropriate prayer. Why would anyone want another to experience the humiliation and defeat inherent in coming into contact with a liar? If you have, as I have, you best not forget. Honestly, it has made me vet my friends more closely. Ask better questions of the new people I meet. I don't want to forget how it was to be sucked into a liar's web. It has also made me more conscious of my own lies. I want God to immediately reprimand me for untruth. I don't want Him to let me get away with falsehoods.
There is another kind of lying I have noticed lately that is perhaps more treacherous because it doesn't look, on the surface, like lying. Keeping secrets. Not so much the kind that involve a heart-to-heart with a friend. But the kind that pride refuses to allow us to bring to light. It can ruin families. Destroy trust. Shame is usually at the root of such secrets, and it will drive us to cover our transgressions to the death. Lie about the abuse. Pretend there was no first marriage. Present a false self to our children out of fear they will not love the real. Other pretense must necessarily follow. Because the subterranean lie must never be revealed. When exposed, however - and it will ultimately be exposed - shame is multiplied and trust is lost. And standing in the midst of the fallen cards are husband, wife, children, close friends or co-workers bereft of you. Feeling cheated and angry.
No wonder lying is the first thing on the list of things God hates. It is false. He is Truth. It is my belief that shame is at the root of the liar's need to create a different self. The real one isn't good enough. It is the root of all addiction. Our Father must understand that because Jesus took our shame, killed it on the cross, and threw it forever into the abyss of hell at His resurrection. No need to carry it ourselves anymore. It can not only be for given, but,also, forgotten...removed from us as far as the east is from the west (Psalm 103). It doesn't have to hold us any longer. Lying to cover it adds more layers of guilt and shame until the burden is almost too much to bear.....or, sometimes, is too much to live with.
Continuing a life of pretense will ultimately bring destruction. God wants truth - inward and outward. He will judge it by one of two standards. The law that says the sinner will die for his or her sins or by the new covenant that promises our adoption as sons and daughters of a Father Who has made us joint hiers with Christ, His Only Begotten Son. A promise to us, sealed with the blood of Jesus, that our sins will be forgiven and remembered no more. ...Looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, Who, for the joy set before Him, endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God. Hebrews 12:2
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