Being Honest with God

Thou shalt not bear false witness means we shouldn’t lie, and yet we lie every day. We lie to our friends. We lie to our coworkers. We lie to our families. We lie to God. Each lie has a purpose. We think we will somehow ‘get what we want’ if we lie instead of being honest. It never works.

Sure, maybe in the short term we avoid awkward situations, but as the saying goes, ‘the truth always comes out,’ and we will eventually be caught. In those moments, we discover that honesty really is the best policy. Nobody can help us when we lie. Will we ever learn?

Lying comes in many sizes but always has the same effect. Many of us get ‘so good’ at lying we think we will never be caught. Then we try it with God. It begins with small ‘white lies’ in our prayers. We ‘say’ we’re sorry for our sins, but sometimes we are ‘just saying it’ to move on.

God is always available to help us, but He can’t help us if we aren’t honest with Him. In today’s Gospel lesson the ‘religious elites’ learned the hard way what it meant to try to fool God with a lie. They lost, and we will lose every time too.

At that time, when Jesus entered the temple, the chief priests and the elders of the people came up to him as he was teaching, and said, “By what authority are you doing these things, and who gave you this authority?” Jesus answered them, “I also will ask you a question; and if you tell me the answer, then I also will tell you by what authority I do these things. The baptism of John, whence was it? From heaven or from men?” And they argued with one another, “If we say, ‘From heaven,’ he will say to us, ‘Why then did you not believe him?’ But if we say, ‘From men,’ we are afraid of the multitude; for all hold that John was a prophet.” So they answered Jesus, “We do not know.” And he said to them, “Neither will I tell you by what authority I do these things.”

Matthew 21.23-27

If you want something from God, don’t try to ‘trick Him’ into helping you. If you want to understand God, you can’t understand Him if you’re not honest with how you feel about Him. Unless you forgot, God already knows the truth in your heart. He already caught you lying.

It may not make sense in the world, but being completely honest with God is the only way to grow with Him. God is waiting for you to open your heart to Him. Good and bad, He already knows, so skip the embarrassing part and jump straight to the truth. Give it try today.