TRUTH TELLING AS A WAY OF LIFE!

Ron Bainbridge

Updated: Feb 15

TODAY’S MESSAGE of ENCOURAGEMENT

FROM

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TRUTH-TELLING

AS A WAY OF LIFE!

“Am I under oath here?” could become the mantra of our time. What a shame that would be! In everyday personal and family, business and professional life, there is no more critical need than remembering just how important truth-telling is for all of life - not just when under oath in a courtroom. Robert Feldman, a psychologist at the University of Massachusetts, conducted an experiment some years ago showing that people have become so good at lying that they sometimes don’t even know they are doing it. Doctor Feldman videotaped 121 pairs of students who were meeting each other for the first time. After a ten-minute conversation, each student was shown his or her tape and asked to point out any misrepresentations. In their initial post-conversation interviews, most of the students were quite sure they had spoken truthfully. But when forced to review the videotape, sixty per cent realized they had lied at least once. On average, most had lied two or three times in their ten-minute exchange with a stranger. Friend, just in case you’re interested in this detail, the males most often lied to puff themselves up. Females, on the other hand, most often fudged the truth to claim more for others or to take the sharp edges off negative opinions of others. In recent years, scandals in governments, businesses, and churches have reminded us how much hard can be done by falsehood, cooking the books, and silence in the face of wrongdoing. But Doctor Feldman’s research reminds us that truth-telling in the ordinary routines of daily life is a challenge to every single one of us. Some years ago, a very prominent politician made a statement that each of us would do well to consider. This is what he said, “He who permits himself to tell a lie once finds it much easier to do it a second and a third time, till at length it becomes habitual.” So beyond simply clucking our tongues at the big-scale dishonesty of a few, the clear personal challenge here is to discipline ourselves to make truthfulness a way of life. Honesty will then become habitual.

With practice at speaking truthfully in life’s little things, we will become trustworthy souls whose word is our bond. With that thought in mind, why not resolve to monitor your truth-telling quotient carefully this week? Friend, in family, corporation, society, or church, no one has the right to withhold information to which another is entitled. Trust makes community possible and is the first casualty of a lie.

In sharing these thoughts with you, I’m thinking that it would be a much better world for each of us to live in if we were to act upon those words the apostle Paul wrote in his letter to the Ephesians, Chapter 4 verse 25, where he said, “Stop lying to each other; tell the truth, for we are parts of each other and when we lie to each other we are hurting ourselves.” Dear Friend, I sincerely hope the thoughts I have shared with you today might provide you with the courage and determination to continue being a person of integrity.

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“The first thing is to be honest with yourself!

You can never have an impact on society

If you have not changed yourself!

Great peacemakers are people of Integrity,

Of Honesty and Humility!”

(Nelson Mandela)

Friend, thank you for taking the time to read what we feel privileged to have shared with you today. We hope you have been encouraged and blessed.

Discovering

A Better Life