Deliver me, O Lord, from lying lips, from a deceitful tongue. (Verse 2)
Do not lie to one another, seeing that you have put off the old self with its practices and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its Creator. Colossians 3
My mother used to wash my mouth out with soap when I lied. Did yours? I can taste it even now. Of course, the idea was twofold. My mouth was dirty from the lies and I needed to be punished. It made me gag. But I'm not sure it kept me from lying. Maybe I was more careful not to lie when she could catch me, but I'm pretty sure the soap had no power to cleanse my conscience. The thing about lying, though, is that it builds upon itself, exponentially. To cover the first lie, there must be a second lie. To cover the first and second, there must be a third until it becomes harder and harder to remember what was even true. When someone discovers she is in relationship with another who habitually lies, there is no way to discern whether the liar is at any time telling the truth. Everything a liar says is under scrutiny. That person can't be trusted to ever be honest.
I find it ironic that Paul would actually have to tell us not to lie. It should be obvious, shouldn't it, that Christians don't lie to each other? But owning the truth is intentional. Knowing that we must tell the truth might change the way we live. We can't blame others for what we need to take responsibility for if we live an honest life. Even if we made a mistake...or worse...intended to do wrong. To avoid the ramifications of our wrongdoing and the revelation of it to others, we decide to do the right thing. But what happens when we do the right thing and we are lied to or about anyway? Seems to be what the psalmist is experiencing. He needs to be delivered from the deceitful people who are trying to ruin him.
"Oh what a tangled web we weave when we first practice to deceive (Sir Walter Scott)." And, oh how hard it is to untangle the mess. It must be why, in the list of the things God hates, a lying tongue is at the very top. "I feel like I'm going crazy," Georgette (not her real name) said to me in her frustration. "John tells me one thing and everyone else tells me another. Do you think he's cheating on me?"
I did. But I didn't know he was. "All I know is that he cheated on his first wife, Georgette. You knew that, too."
"But every time I ask John about it, he tells me how much he loves me. Says, 'Would I have married you if I wanted other women?'. There are things I wonder about, though. Things that don't feel right." She was wringing her hands. Worry lines creasing her brow. "It makes me wonder what I need to do to fix our marriage."
"Has he ever lied to you, that you know of?" I asked.
"Yes. But about little things...like where he was, who he was with. But when I've called him on it he makes me feel small for questioning it. Like I'm the one with the problem." Georgette even looked confused by her own recollection. Her next question was so telling, "I guess if he'd lie to me about small things he'd lie about big ones, huh?"
She's still feeling crazy. Nothing much has changed except she's trying to better herself through marriage workshops and making an effort to have a great marriage. All the while she lives with a man whose faithfulness she can't trust. But it must be her fault somehow...his wandering eye and his late nights. It's her third marriage, so what's she going to do? She thought she'd done it right this time. To come to grips with the fact that she failed again would be worse than to unravel all the lies she's being told in the present. And she's caught! Her feet more and more entangled in the web of her husband's lies...and the lies she tells herself as a result.
It's all that God hates. Deceit and manipulation. Every evil thing can spring from it. And the liar moves from person to person shooting web from his heart like Spiderman, entangling whoever will listen and believe in a prison of pain. I pray my friend will see it. Be delivered from it. But by then she'll have so much to unravel...so many lies to unspin. And she will have wasted her heart on one who lives as though he hates her as he willfully deceives her.
We who know Christ have a new character. A new heart. We are new people made in the image of our Creator, a God Who cannot lie: God is not a man that He should lie, or a son of man, that He should change His mind. Has He said, and He will not do it? Or has He spoken and He will not fulfill it? (Numbers 23) We should be able to expect honesty of each other since we are now children of One Who can't lie. If God promises something, He does it! If we say we'll do something, we need to do it! Intentionally. People rely on us to tell them the truth. Even if the truth is, "I was wrong." No excuses. God doesn't wash our mouths out with soap, but cleanses us with the blood of Christ to be powerful over the sin that used to entangle us. Let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water. Let us hold fast the confession of our faith without wavering, for He Who promised if faithful. And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works (Hebrews 10). I want to live in the no-spin zone.
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