S142P6 – The fruit of falsehood: more trouble ahead
Pro. 17:20
A man of crooked heart does not discover good, and one with a dishonest tongue falls into calamity.
He was barely a teenager and not old enough for his working papers. A man down the steet who owned a snack cart let the boy work the cart for cash over the summer. One day, he decided to help himself to a few dollars from the cash box. He figured he would simply report that he had sold fewer snacks and made less money. However, once the owner took inventory of the cart, he knew that was not true. The owner asked the boy again to explain, and he claimed he had lent the money to a man who never returned to repay him. The story was unbelievable, so the owner pressed him again. The boy then claimed to have been robbed but was too ashamed to admit it. The wise owner then had the boy turn out his pockets, and out fell the exact amount that had been missing. He knew then that he had to cut the boy loose.
We all have been told that our lies will catch up to us one day. We know the old adage that one lie cannot stand alone. Eventually, another lie is necessary to cover for the first, and it just snowballs from there. The reason for the additional lies is that the first lie eventually brings trouble. The subsequent lies try to keep that trouble at bay, and it takes only one slip-up for the whole house of cards to collapse. What this creates is a trap for the liar. He now is bound to this story of fiction he has created. He must remember the story so that he can play pretend effectively whenever the issue is raised. He must be prepared always to defend that false position, and the mountain of deception can make things so much worse once the lies finally come out.
That young boy was a thief, but he made his reputation worse when he failed to admit that infraction and take the penalty. The owner might have shown some understanding or some grace. However, once the boy lied repeatedly about his thievery and showed the extent to which he would go to deceive the authority over him, the owner had to draw the line. It is a real thing that people have committed petty crimes of deception that have devolved into more serious crimes like murder all for the sake of keeping the first lie covered. The slope can be slippery and steep, which is why deceit must stay far from our lips from the beginning. Father, make us understand the seriousness of deception, that we would want to stay far from it.