You’re probably wondering what I mean. There are no benefits to lying. Lying is bad, everyone knows that. Yet, it seems like everyone is doing it, so there must be some benefits.
Saving feelings
People use the term “white lie” to refer to small lies. Those are things like saying someone looks great when you don’t like their makeup for that day. Maybe it’s a saleswoman who knows that body shape shouldn’t wear that neckline or a husband who says those jeans look great when he barely looked. We often tell white lies to save someone else’s feelings or to save face. Of course we were being helpful instead of scrolling on our phones for the last hour.
Revenge or self benefit
Some people tell lies to hurt other people or to improve their own chances at something. That is called slander. Lying about a coworker might get us a promotion faster. Telling lies about a beautiful classmate might get us the boyfriend we want. Lying about a rival company could get our company that awesome contract.
The problem with lying is if we get caught.
If our boss and coworker find out we lied to get a promotion, there could be legal problems. We might lose our job. We will definitely lose our credibility and future promotions will be harder to get. If our dream boyfriend finds out we lied, he’ll probably dump us. At the very least he won’t trust us as much. When rival companies find out about lies that cost them contracts, they will probably sue.
There are no benefits to lying
Psalm 7 talks about a time when David was slandered. Among the plea for God to punish David’s slanderers, he put in the nuggets of wisdom in verses 14-16 above. Plans based on lies will always come back on the liar. If we tell huge lies, we’ll live in fear of discovery. We’ll worry about if our lies are discovered and our lives are ruined. No one likes having a liar around, they can’t be trusted. So lies might seem like a good idea in the short term, an easy out, but there are no real benefits to lying.
