Don’t Lie To Me!!!

One of the most frustrating things in the world is when someone tells you something that is NOT true…

For example—last week I flew to Washington DC out of Greenville, SC. USAir has a flight that is non-stop into Reagan—so that is the one I decided to take.

REWIND—two years ago was the only other experience I have had with USAir…I flew from Greenville to DC, spent the day in DC, and then was supposed to fly home that afternoon at around 4:30—our flight didn’t leave DC until 1:00AM!

So—needless to say there was a bad taste in my mouth when it came to USAir.

Jason & I got to the Greenville airport last week in plenty of time to get on a plane and fly to DC; however, when we got to the ticket counter the dude behind the computer told us that the flight was delayed—and so we were supposed to be leaving at 4:00, but instead we were going to now be leaving at 7:30.

I was NOT happy! And don’t pretend that you would have been—I love flying out of GSP—but having to be stranded there for three hours! AHHHHH! (We had been dropped off & so we didn’t have access to a car.)

Well, I made the comment to Jason in front of the USAIR dude, “Hey man, this happened the last times I flew USAir.” And the little dude went off on me, “Sir,” he said, “this is not a USAir problem—nearly all airlines have had to cancel flights along the east coast because of bad weather.”

I apologized and said that we would hang out there at good ‘ole GSP…and I was fine…until…I saw the board with all of the departures and arrivals listed…AND a weather map for the east coast.

UH—there was a problem—USAir was the only airline listed with ANY delays or cancelations. All of the airlines were on time—yes, even the ones flying into and out of DC.

I was furious! I hate being lied to—my intelligence was insulted…I said to Jason, “Why did he tell me that if he knew I was going to walk down here and look at the board?” Nothing fires me up more than to be lied to.

And in Scripture—God is pretty clear that we need to keep our promises—to speak the truth—to not lie to people. I began to think about this in the airport…and discovered that the very thing I was mad about was something that I have been guilty of many times.

We’ve all done it—haven’t we? Saying to someone, “Yeah, I will give you a call,” and then we never do. Or we say, “I will be praying for you,” and we don’t. I have been so guilty of this in the past—telling someone I would do something and then either not following through or simply forgetting all about it.

However, one of the things I have discovered is that if I tell someone I am going to do something then they expect me to do it…and so the words I used to speak as careless words NOW mean something…I can’t just throw around empty phrases because God’s word tells me to speak the truth.

This is an issue I know we can all work on. I wish I had this one down…but I am still working on it…I want to be a man of my word. We should all strive to do that as followers of Christ.