Even when we live under the pressing need for honesty, even at that, we are often compelled to keep some things secret. Sometimes, there comes a ripping in our soul as there grows the increasing inner conflict of self-disclosure versus keeping a secret in mortal fear we will be discovered. Lies and fear are weights, not wings. Secrets are necessary sometimes, after all, there are somethings which are, indeed, no one’s business but our own. Consider also that God has secrets, but He does promise us, in the end, all things will be revealed. Some secrets are necessary, but when keeping too many, they become a growing burden which eats away at all we are.

The Lord knows all of our lives and sees our tortured selves as we hide, and slide, and make alibis, while the rich, colorful world in our heart slowly, almost, imperceptibly, fades to bleak shades of grey scale, all from the burden of lies we tell ourselves and others.

We tell ourselves the truth that we are more than conquerors, but then we stretch it in our imagination to believing some of the wildest things you’ve ever heard. The Lord says He is with us, and all power in Heaven and earth is in Christ who is in our hearts. We figure His power is our power, so we go around rebuking trees, binding shadows, cursing weeds, commanding ourselves to walk on water, all the while our house is a mess, we need a bath, we’ve got bills to pay, our spouse and kids need our attention, and the lies we tell ourselves just bow us to the ground in broken expectations and sweeping disappointment. Eventually, all our self-deception and lying causes us so much pain, it eats up our mental real estate and costs us all our emotional capital until we’re so poor, not only do we struggle to pay our bills but we can’t even pay attention.

i think a lot of folks often feel stuck. We can’t seem to live, and it’s not time to die, i suppose it looks a lot like being constipated. Within ourselves we feel like a frail spirit , and we’re carrying our disappointments around, in backpacks, knowing they will never release us, not for one second. The lies we tell ourselves cry out and plead to be resolved, while binding us up in chains in the mean time. Only Jesus can set us free, but we do have to be willing to let the graveyard of old things give up it’s dead, letting the dead be dead.

i tried my hand at being a pastor for 2 ½ years. i struggled, and tried, crashed and burned every week where no one could see me. Oh man! Honestly, i don’t know what i thought, but i’m pretty sure i had a twisted idea of what it meant to be a pastor. i cried a lot. God transformed me, a lot. Every week i tried again, every week was extraordinary, every week i was glad and was also slammed with disappointment at the same time, and every week, long about Wednesday, i would get emails of complaints about how we didn’t do this, didn’t say that, shoulda’ sung this, prayed too long, not long enough, just murmuring and complaining. Oh man! Late one Sunday afternoon, sitting alone on the porch, i had a revelation, i had been lying to myself telling myself i could be that person, but the truth was, i did NOT have what it took to legitimately wear the title, it was simply not my gifting. That was the day i realized we can out run our sound thinking by assigning ourselves a title for which we have no particular gift. In fact, the weight of the lie that i WAS that person was such a burden, my feet got slower and slower, till i was, metaphorically, dragging my feet, barely able to stand. Interestingly, i watched other people who were also bent over from the weight of their own lies. People who told themselves they were prophets, but there was very little evidence of it. Oh they tried alright, gave it a valiant effort, but their words just fell to the ground to be swept up with the dust. Yet others told themselves they had no real gifts, all the while exhibiting beautiful teaching or serving gifts with extraordinary insight, but outright denying God’s gift in themselves.

We tell ourselves we know the Lord, yet many can’t tell of His attributes. We say we go to church because it’s the right thing to do, but we never question what it is we are so insistently attending? We vehemently tell people not to judge us, yet we have only a faint idea of what it is about ourselves we don’t want them to judge. We tell ourselves with frothing anger that so-and-so owes us an apology, but yet we won’t, ourselves, own our actions. And what’s worse, we may have apologized for our wrong actions but then we point out how the other person did such-n-such too. “You’re just as bad as me!” Our lies will bow us down so bad they’ll make our back crack under the weight of lies.

In the Bible, a lie is a curse, and to be cursed is to have no weight, as in no weight to change not one thing. Glory has weight, curses do not. Light has weight, darkness does not. With that observation, what is it about lies which is said to, “weigh on our conscience” so heavily? i believe the weight of lies is the burden or the violation of our conscience, the shame we bring to ourselves, and the dishonor of not being honest. When we are not honest, we simply are not honest and it wears us down. Like a file scrapes off chunks of wood, lies scrape off chunks of our conscience, until our lies don’t bother us much anymore. They tend to multiply, for it takes an additional lie to cover over the last lie, thus, the weight on our conscience of dishonor, brings more dishonor in our continuation to hide, and the shadows grow longer in our mind and heart. All the while, we grow further and further from the Lord, who loves us and merely bids us to come clean with Him.

We must elect to be honest. It doesn’t hurt much except our pride. Being honest is as healthy as eating good food, and drinking clean water. i believe there is glory which grows in our hearts when we are honest with God and ourselves. And if you do elect to throw off the weight of lies for a life style of being honest, prepare yourself for indirectly making others uncomfortable. They will squirm, often they will stop calling you, maybe avoid you at the store, or not respond to emails or texts. But you and i, we’re going to just keep on being diligent to get out from under the weight of the lies we’ve been told and believed for the sake of convenience, or maybe even because the lies sounded highly probable to our already saddened state of mind.

2 Kings12:15 tells about the workman who were so honest, the people didn’t have to call them to account because they were straight up about all they did. They didn’t lie about where the money went, they didn’t lie about the work they said they did — but didn’t, they didn’t lie using some future promise to make everything balance out, nor did they lie about when the work would be finished. They were honest, and God had it recorded in the Bible. Can you imagine, being so honest, the Lord wrote your name in the Bible for everyone, everywhere, to see forever?

The weight of lies will bow us to the ground, and only God can lift us up. Psalm 3:3 says the Lord is the glory and the lifter of our head, but friends, we’ve gotta be willing to abandon our disillusionments too.