Loving And Making A Lie

 

The wise try to adjust themselves to the truth, while fools try to adjust the truth to themselves.
— Thibaut

"Living in truth may feel like a battle, but it brings you peace."
— Unknown

Truth Will Cut Its Own Way

Scripture is remarkably consistent about one thing: God cannot lie. That statement describes His actual nature. Lectures on Faith teaches that if God could lie, He would cease to be God. Truth constitutes His very being. His words align perfectly with reality.

Scripture places lying in stark opposition to this. Satan is called the father of lies because deception forms the substance of his work. Lies function as instruments. They bind, distort and fracture. Denver has described the chains of the adversary as lies "The world is chained by lies" and that image is precise. Lies bind people to false realities, false loyalties and false fears.

Because of this, scripture doesn't leave much room for nuance about lying itself. “Wo unto the liar” stands without a list of exceptions. God declares lying incompatible with Him.

That clarity forces an uncomfortable question on anyone who wants to take covenant seriously. If God cannot lie, and Zion is meant to reflect His character, then truth cannot be optional in His work. It cannot be suspended for convenience. It cannot be outsourced to strategy. A people who justify lying, even placidly, even temporarily, are no longer operating on God’s terms, no matter how sincere their intentions.

“Truth is the property of no individual but is the treasure of all men.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

This is where many people feel tension. Scripture also speaks of things that are “not lawful to be uttered” of mysteries withheld, of visions too great to record. That can sound like secrecy, but it's something very different.

God withholds truth because truth requires capacity. Light is given as fast as people can endure it, not as fast as curiosity demands it.

The difference isn’t trivial.

Silence can be holy.

Waiting can be merciful.

Refusing to speak can be an act of stewardship. Silence preserves truth without revealing it. Withholding preserves truth without revealing it.

If we blur that distinction, we risk adopting the adversary’s tools while telling ourselves we are serving God’s purposes.

Sacred Is Not the Same as Secret

Scripture draws a careful distinction between things that are sacred and things that are secret, and the difference stands out clearly.

Sacred things are withheld because the person receiving them must become something first. Scripture speaks of visions that were “not lawful to be uttered” because the hearer would not yet be able to endure them. Truth carries great weight. Light requires capacity. God reveals truth as fast as His children can be quickened to receive it.

In that sense, sacred withholding functions as an act of mercy. It protects people, not information. The goal remains transformation rather than permanent concealment. God desires His children to grow into beings who can see what He sees and bear what He bears. He reveals mysteries only as fast as His love allows.

Secrecy operates in the opposite direction.

Secrets focus on control rather than capacity. They create insiders and outsiders. They rely on exclusion, hierarchy and (often) loyalty tests. Secrets flatter pride. They make people feel special, chosen or important because they know something others don't. Scripture never attributes that impulse to God.

The adversary, on the other hand, thrives in secrecy. Darkness forms his native environment. Councils held in the dark, selective disclosure, managed narratives and subtle deceptions serve as essential features of his work. Lies become necessary to maintain secrets, and once lying receives justification in one area, it rarely remains contained.

This is why silence and lying can't be treated as moral equivalents. Silence preserves truth without distorting it. Lying replaces truth with falsehood. One waits in patience. The other manufactures a reality that isn't true.

God may say “Not yet.” He never says, “Say what is not true”

If a work requires lies to protect it, then the method has already departed from God’s character, no matter how noble the goal appears. God’s work advances through preparation, patience and growth in light. Satan’s work advances through concealment, fear and deception.

Too many prefer gentle lies to hard truths.
— Shane Parrish

That difference appears in practice every time people must choose between restraint and falsehood, between humility and appearing important, between trusting God to manage His work and managing it themselves.

To see how this plays out in lived experience, consider this simple story…

The Hidden Well – A Parable

In a village long troubled by drought, four friends - a practical farmer, a compassionate healer, a skilled builder and a wise elder storyteller - discovered an underground spring beneath a remote hill. They recognized its promise immediately. If dug and reinforced carefully over time, it could become a sturdy well, one capable of sustaining the village through future years when  other sources failed.

But the path to the spring was narrow and fragile. Too many feet too soon could grind the earth into mud, collapse the tunnels or draw the water before the well could be made strong and safe for all. The four understood this clearly. The gift would require patience.

They gathered one evening to discuss the matter.

The farmer said, “This spring could save the village if the rains fail again. But if everyone rushes here now, it will be ruined before it begins.”

The healer nodded. “People mean well, but good intentions without skill can still cause harm. We can work secretly, carefully, at the edges of the day.”

The elder added, “Then we agree. We speak of it to no one until it is ready for all.”

The builder sealed the decision. “For the good of the village.”

So they began. They met before first light and after the lamps were dimmed, digging slowly, shoring walls with stone, reinforcing the passage with care. When neighbors noticed their early risings or dirt-streaked clothes, the four smiled, deflected or changed the subject. Silence felt like stewardship, like guarding a fragile seed until it could bear fruit.

Weeks passed. Questions grew sharper. A neighbor noticed the builder’s blistered hands. An aunt asked the healer why she was always out before dawn. Family members wondered aloud what occupied so much time and energy.

One evening, the builder admitted, “My brother kept asking about the tools I carry. I told him I was fixing my roof. It was easier than dodging the questions.”

The healer said, “I told my sister I was gathering roots for medicine. She stopped asking.”

The farmer agreed. “Better a small explanation than risking the whole well.”

The elder hesitated. “As long as it stays small.”

But the explanations did not stay small.

Stories overlapped and contradicted one another. What one called hunting, another called foraging. Whispers followed. To prevent confusion, they agreed on a single account, something private and not to be discussed. Yet even among themselves, details shifted. Someone forgot the agreed wording. Someone added a clarification to smooth an exchange. Soon they were correcting one another, tracking conversations, watching for slips.

At some point, protecting the work became indistinguishable from protecting their certainty about the work.

Meetings that once opened with laughter now began with tension. They spoke less about the joy of what they were building and more about who had said what to whom. They withdrew from village gatherings to avoid questions that now felt risky rather than curious. Friendships cooled. The healer noticed her own family keeping a careful distance. The builder wondered whether the others trusted him to stay within the bounds. The farmer grew defensive. The elder grew quiet.

Still, the well grew, deeper, stronger, lined with care.

At last it stood ready: a clear, steady spring, protected and deep enough for all.

On the chosen morning, they called the village to the hill. The people came, astonished and grateful. They drank. They filled jars. They sang thanks to the four who had labored in private. The well flowed freely, quenching the land’s thirst for years to come.

Yet those who had drawn it forth walked away changed.

The farmer, the healer, the builder and the elder no longer met at dawn with shared purpose. Their paths diverged like cracks in dry earth. The bonds that had once held them - trust, laughter, common labor - had frayed under the weight of the stories they had spun to protect the gift.

The well endured - a public good that blessed many.

But the people who built it were diminished.

The moment fear takes the place of faith, stewardship turns into control.

When Secrecy Becomes a Way of Life

This isn:t merely theoretical for me. More than twenty years ago, I watched certain family members embrace secrecy as a form of protection. They became convinced that certain truths needed to remain hidden from perceived threats, and that withholding, or even reshaping, information was not only allowable but prudent. What began as selective caution became a habit that touched nearly every part of life.

Marriages took place without family invitations or announcements. Children arrived without shared joy or photos. Serious illnesses, moves and milestones were kept quiet. When questions came, as they inevitably did, small explanations smoothed them over at first. Silence soon gave way to stories, and the stories multiplied to cover the gaps.

No one set out to harm anyone. They believed they were safeguarding something important, even noble in their own eyes. Yet trust can't thrive where truth becomes flexible. Over time, relationships thinned to threads. Suspicions took root. Bonds that once felt permanent stretched and frayed, some beyond repair. The family has never fully recovered.

What affected me most deeply was how the secrecy turned inward. It no longer merely shielded them from the outside world. It began to manage relationships within the family itself. People corrected one another’s versions of events, watched for inconsistencies, guarded their words even among kin. The cause they felt compelled to protect endured in some form, but the people did not. The warmth, openness and simple trust of being known, and of knowing others, eroded under the weight of constant calculation.

That experience left me with a realization I still carry. When secrecy slides into deception, even when the reasons feel urgent or protective, it reshapes everyone involved. It trains people to weigh every word, to choose convenience over candor, to live with one eye on appearances. The damage may unfold slowly, but it is rarely superficial. It lingers in absences, in conversations that never quite happen, in hearts that learn to hold back.

I'm not sharing this to point fingers, but because I have seen the pattern up close. Good intentions do not immunize us from its consequences.

Restraint, Deception and the Moral Line

This distinction is important enough to pause and really consider it. Let's separate the threads.

There's a categorical moral difference between withholding truth and intentionally shaping false belief.

Withholding truth is a choice to remain silent. “I will not speak.” It respects another person’s agency and capacity, trusting that light will come in its proper season.

Deception, by contrast, is active. “I will guide you to believe something untrue.” It may never utter a direct falsehood, yet it nudges, implies, steers, or manages perception so that a false conclusion takes root. Once someone knowingly crosses into this territory, even through careful wording, selective emphasis or emotional inference, they have stepped over a bright line. This is manipulation. It treats others as objects to be directed rather than moral agents capable of discernment and choice.

Scripture draws this line without compromise. God persuades by light and truth, inviting examination and free response. The adversary persuades by distortion, implication and managed belief. He is called the father of lies not only for outright falsehoods, but for every form of deception that leads hearts astray.

What makes this approach so corrosive is that it often hides behind technical honesty. “I never said that” becomes a shield, as though the absence of explicit words erases intent. But intention matters deeply. If the aim is to cause a false belief to settle in another’s mind, the moral reality aligns with lying outright. Effectiveness doesn't make it righteous. Poison works perfectly well, too.

In a time of deceit telling the truth is a revolutionary act.
— George Orwell

When people sense, (even subconsciously) that they are being steered rather than informed, trust collapses. Worse, they begin to doubt their own perceptions. Spiritual harm takes root here. A person trained to be manipulated learns not to reason carefully, but to react emotionally. They stop asking, “Is this true?” and begin asking, “What am I supposed to feel?” or “What version keeps the peace?”

Communities can't thrive under such conditions. We need people who see clearly, reason freely and choose in light. Manipulation produces compliance, not unity. It fractures discernment and replaces mutual trust with guarded suspicion.

It become evident when a narrative requires continual adjustment, choreography or emotional management to survive. Truth stands on its own. It doesn't need to be propped up, reframed or protected through implication. When a foundation demands such care, it reveals something essential about itself.

The Seduction of Secret-Having

What I have observed about those who delight in holding secrets is not incidental. It is diagnostic.

Secret-holding for its own sake is rarely about stewardship. It becomes a matter of identity and status. “I know something you don’t” creates an artificial elevation. The holder feels important, chosen, or powerful. The outsider feels diminished or dependent. Both distortions warp relationships.

Contrast this with the sacred. Sacred things are weighty and humbling. They draw a person closer to God in reverence. Secrets are exciting, flattering, and socially potent. They elevate one person over another. People who relish announcing that they possess hidden knowledge are not guarding anything holy. They are advertising position.

That impulse doesn't originate in God. He doesn't tease truth or dangle mystery to build hierarchy. He reveals as people are able to bear it, and when He withholds, He does so without spectacle or self-aggrandizement.

Secrecy and manipulation so often travel together because both depend on asymmetry of information. Both require someone to remain in the dark while another controls the light.

No one is more hated than he who speaks the truth.
— Plato

Truth never damages a cause that is just.
— Mahatma Gandhi

God never needs to manage perception. He never steers belief through implication, suggestion or fear. He never makes people feel special for knowing less or more than others.

Some readers may think here of passages where God uses language that is later clarified, such as references to “eternal punishment,” which scripture itself explains does not describe endless torment, but punishment associated with God’s name and authority.

These passages are sometimes read as though God intentionally allowed people to misunderstand His words in order to motivate repentance through fear. I don't believe that reading reflects God’s character.

God never weaponizes misunderstanding. He allows it, suffers it and patiently corrects it as light can be received.

There is a moral difference between speaking truth that is later misunderstood and deliberately shaping language to produce a false belief for a desired outcome. God persuades by light and truth, not by implication, exaggeration or fear.

Truth stands on its own. It persuades without distortion. It invites scrutiny and examination. It doesn't shrink from honest questions.

When any system, personal, familial or communal, begins to depend on secrecy, managed narratives, carefully curated belief or the deliberate shaping of conclusions, it has already spoken clearly about its foundation.

Silence can respect agency. Manipulation overrides it. Guiding, nudging or pressuring others toward untrue conclusions, even without a single explicit lie, doesn't build trust, It undermines the very conditions for free, truthful choice.

This distinction is bright and unchanging. Recognizing it opens the door to course correction, to choosing light over management, to rebuilding on truth rather than perception. Repentance is always possible where truth is welcomed. Entrenchment hardens only when the method itself becomes sacred.

A Simple Diagnostic for Discernment

This isn't an argument about motives. Sincere people can make sincere choices that still carry unintended costs. The question isn't who is good or bad. The question is what a system requires in order to function.

A few simple tests can help clarify the difference between sacred restraint and corrosive secrecy.

• Does this work ask for patience, or does it ask for false explanations?
• Does it rely on silence, or on managing appearances?
• Does it strengthen trust over time, or does it erode it?
• Would this work remain intact if everyone involved spoke only what was true?
• Does participation require people to become more honest, or merely more careful?

God’s work advances through preparation, growth and increasing light. It doesn't require deception to survive. When lying becomes a tool, I something essential has already been lost.

Silence can be sacred. Waiting can be wise. Some things unfold only as people are ready to bear them. But lies don't prepare hearts. They don't build capacity. They shift the cost of protection from the work onto the people.

Truth doesn't need defending by falsehood. If a cause is of God, it can be trusted to grow in the light. And if it cannot survive without deception, then no amount of good intention can make the method holy.

The measure of a system isn't what it produces, but what it requires of those who serve it.

A Personal Echo: Lying to Ourselves

A couple of years ago, during trauma coaching, I confronted something I had long avoided: I had been lying to myself.

Honesty has always mattered deeply to me. When my oldest son was about three and experimenting with small lies, I told him about the “mommy dot” on his face, a mark only mommy's could see when their kids weren’t telling the truth. The next time he tried to fib, he covered his forehead. I laughed and explained that the mommy dot didn’t just sit in one place, it showed up in facial expressions, body language, tone. There was no hiding it. The lesson stuck. He became scrupulously honest, and still is. The other kids followed that standard. They would confess before they could finish a lie.

Truth has been a cornerstone in our family.

Which is why it was so unsettling to realize that while I believed I wasn’t lying outwardly, I had been lying inwardly. In therapy, I began to see how much energy I spent curating a picture of being fine. Capable. Unflappable. I suppressed emotions because they didn't look good. I avoided vulnerability out of fear of rejection. I told myself I was okay even when I wasn’t. I wasn’t allowing my real feelings to exist, let alone be seen.

At first, I thought this was a private distortion, a lie contained entirely within myself. But I began to see that it didn't stay there.

When you curate an image you know others will believe, the deception no longer belongs only to you. Even if no false words are spoken, you are still presenting something you know is not fully true, and allowing others to receive it as reality. What began as self-protection became a form of outward misrepresentation. I was managing perception, not only my own, but others’ as well.

That kind of self-deception is exhausting! It fractures integrity from the inside out. You begin to live in performance instead of presence, in maintenance instead of truth.

Around that time, What Was I Made For? arrived and landed with unexpected force. I must have listened to it a dozen times and rewatched the video just as often, and I cried from its raw honesty.

The imagery mattered as much as the music. A perfectly dressed figure tends a pristine, doll-sized world. Everything is orderly, composed, beautiful. When the ground shakes, she pauses only briefly, then resumes. As winds rise and rain falls, she works harder to maintain the scene, re-hanging what is blown away, restoring what has fallen. Only when the storm makes the effort unmistakably futile does she stop. She gathers what remains, closes the case, rests her head on it in exhaustion, and walks away. Then she returns once more to grab a forgotten piece, unable to quite let go, before leaving again.

That image stayed with me.

We can maintain a carefully curated picture for a long time. We can convince ourselves it is strength, resilience, faithfulness. But storms test what is real. And when the image finally collapses, what remains is not relief, but grief for how much energy was spent pretending instead of living truthfully.

That song helped me see something I could not avoid any longer. Honesty is not only about what we say. It is about what we allow to be true, both within ourselves and in the way we allow others to know us. Truth doesn't remain compartmentalized. When we refuse it inwardly, it eventually distorts what we offer outwardly as well.