Christian Living

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Larry Lilly's Letter Tuesday November 29, 2005

A famous football coach was faced with situation that carried eternal consequences if not solved. His star running back was failing English and would be declared ineligible for the biggest game of the year. So, in the tradition of famous coaches, he sallied forth to the office of the Professor of English to see if something could be done.

The English professor asserted that said halfback had in fact managed to be seated by an A student and had merely copied the A student's answers. Giving evidence of such dastardly actions he showed the coach each boy's paper and each of the first nine answers were identical. At the ninth identical answer the English instructor assumed that with such a preponderance of evidence the coach would accept the ineligibility of the player. The coach insisted that this 'preponderance of evidence' was in fact merely circumstantial. So the Professor sadly proceeded to present tenth question and answers of both boys. The tenth was something else and would have challenged Darrow or F. Lee Bailey.

There on the page in answer to question number ten was the smoking gun.

The A student had honestly answered, "I don't know."

The fast imbecile answered, "I don't know either."

Had the halfback been as good at cheating as he was at dodging tacklers, he might have been in the hall of fame and the stadium named after the coach.

Truth be known no one, even the most brilliant among us can be good enough at cheating to always get by. And the weakness inherent in cheating always seems to rise up and bite at key moments.

Most of the moralizing about lying or cheating is directed along the lines that you shouldn't do it because you will get caught. True enough, but not good enough to prevent very much cheating or lying.

The biblical reason is better and when understood will go a long way toward helping you overcome this very human tendency. The biblical reason can be stated very in super simple terms. When you cheat someone who rightly deserves the benefit you are cheating/lying to claim as your own is robbed of the opportunity. Lying, cheating is in fact stealing.

And unbeknownst to far too many folks the biggest loser is the man or woman who engages in this practice. We can lie by words, deeds done for the purpose of deceiving.

Proverbs 13:5 "A righteous man hateth lying: but a wicked man is loathsome, and cometh to shame."

Larry Lilly Copyright © 2005 Use with credit.

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