Why Do People Lie?

Answer - because it is more comfortable than sitting up all the time.

Deep, huh?

Lying.  Wish I could say I have never done that. But I have.
Wish I could say that I quit it and never do it any more - but that would be a lie.

Why?

When I was in my teens I became aware that I was a terrible liar.  Not that I was bad at it, on the contrary.  I gave myself so much practice I became good at it.  All kinds of lying, in all kinds of situations.

When I considered Jesus at the age of 19 - listened to the Bible preached and taught and really considered what was being proposed by man and the written Word of God - I decided to commit my heart to Him.  To belief in Him. It was a conscious decision of such magnitude for me that I remember the day, the place, the way the light looked as it rayed in through the golden windows of the church and over my shoes...like it was yesterday.

I have never swerved from that commitment, not in the 38 years that followed. And when I look in the mirror (or the Mirror - see James 1) I cannot fathom how much I have changed since those tumultuous years before Him.

I remember climbing on the plane to KC from Cincinnati to go to my sister's wedding. I was about 23 - my husband and 18 month old daughter slept on the seats beside me. And I read a book on criminal thinking.  I was reading all kinds of psychology and theology books back then to try to figure out why I had so many evil tendencies. Because as a still young Christian I realized that I was different from my brother and sister.  We were all raised by the same "Ozzie and Harriett" parents. Same home, same financial and emotional and mental upbringing. So much the same and yet so very different.

They were "good"...and I was not. I don't mean they were angels - ahem...they were and are not.  But they were hard-working and honest to a fault. At least, I think of them that way. And so did my parents. They were the good kids and I was the problem child.

What had happened to me? Was I switched at birth and was growing up in the wrong family?  Did Bonnie and Clyde miss me and not know what to do with the Anderson's real daughter - Miss Goodie Two Booties?

I don't know.  I just know that I was aghast at my propensity to lie and steal.  

I decided I was mentally ill.

And, by the way, the book didn't help all that much...because while it helped me see why others lied...it didn't help me with why I did.

And so I have spent the past 35 years working on my own salvation with fear and trembling (Philippians 2:12). If figured I was mentally ill, as I said, but I also believed that Jesus is the Great Physician and could heal me. I gave my criminal disposition to Jesus and His Word. A real break through came when I turned myself in for an addiction to prescribed pain medication (and alcohol when the doctor refused to refill anymore). I was in my late 30s!

The 12 Steps I began to walk at AA, NA and Overcomers (a Christian 12-step group) did more than help me break free of substance abuse.  They came right out of the Word and were applicable to all of life's "opportunities".

Do you know them?


1. We admitted we were powerless over alcohol - that our lives had become unmanageable.
2. Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.
3. Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him.
4. Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.
5. Admitted to God, to ourselves and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.
6. Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.
7. Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings.
8. Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all.
9. Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.
10. Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it.
11. Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood Him, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out.
12. Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to alcoholics and to practice these principles in all our affairs.

 See? This is the Christian experience - pure and simple.  It is about forgiveness - and then writing on the clean slate that forgiveness provides.

Steps 1-3?  Salvation.
Steps 4-7? Sanctification. (Now there is a teaching you don't hear much any more in the modern church...)
Steps 8 & 9 - Restitution. Paying back those we have harmed - forgiving those who have harmed us.
Steps 10 & 11 - continuous growth (walking in the Spirit, see Romans 8)
and finally
Step 12 - Evangelism!

And how the Lord has used these simple steps to take me from sexual immorality to the freedom of a monogamous, joyful marriage; addiction to drugs to emotional peace and the strength to face the ups and downs of life in a more mature, graceful manner; aimlessness to a life of purpose and hope; scattered thinking and more scattered behavior to self awareness and companionship of the One Who created me...so much change.  I was so mean and hard-hearted...and Christ has imparted to me a soul of true love for others and (slowly) growing wisdom as to how to live that out.

But I must publicly (well, maybe someone will read this other than myself) admit that I still wrestle with lying. Not the kind of lying to cover evil or to harm others - it is more of an embellishment of the facts of my life.  I am loads better in this too, but I am disgusted that lying remains in me at all.  I am 57 for crying out loud!

Why?

Why do people lie? Why do I lie?

A list then:
To get out of trouble. To avoid hurting someone's feelings. To avoid someone. 
To cover another lie. To cover up some other evil or icky thing you have done.
To seem more interesting. To get a laugh. (these last two are the things I find remain in my lying repertoire).
To hurt someone on purpose. Because it is a habit. 
To cover up the truth because it is too painful to face the truth.

Because you think what you are saying is the truth.

Hmmmm...that one I see all the time on my new job. I am a case manager now for people referred to our company because they scored high on a substance abuse survey.

They really believe some of the things they tell me and when I am able to politely show them that this is not true...they seem surprised as all get out! Sometimes they seem truly astounded that what they were telling me was a lie. And then I see this look of confusion and consternation...if they were lying and what they said was not true...what is? 


But I think basically it comes down to this: people lie for the same reason that they commit any other sin (wrong, error, lapse, whatever you want to call it):

Because they can.

Exercising free will is an addiction all of it's own and humans are constantly drunk on the power of this exhilarating gift. For it is a gift, this free will.  A vast, gracious, incomprehensible (for now) present from Abba to His children.

And this struggle of learning to use it is why we are on the planet, Earth. Well - loving God and each other is why we are here (in my simple minded opinion) - but free will is the tool to accomplish these two things.

(Did you ever notice that when you rearrange the letters of Earth - you can spell Heart?

Ahem.)

 Jesus came as a baby - grew up among us at the perfect time for Him to do so - exemplified what perfectly exercised free will & goodness looks like...then died for our mistakes - all of them - so we who believe on Him can have eternal life with God again. And from the moment we consciously commit to belief in Christ until the end of this world, we get to practice using our free will.

And when the time comes for us to return to Him and live forever where He is...we will be perfect at it too.  We will have learned to always think and speak and do the truth. To love perfectly. To honor perfectly. To be perfectly alive...not because we have no other choice, but because we did and we learned from our mistakes. And the Truth set us free.  

Perfectly.
 
Loving you - Susan