Proverbs 12:22 - Lying lips are an abomination to the Lord, but those who act faithfully are his delight.
Being honest should be one of the simplest things to do. Think about it. All an honest person does is say what actually happened. There is no embellishment, no twisting of the facts, just a genuine representation of what is real. However, while the idea of being honest is about as logical as can be, the actual practice of honesty seems to stump humanity time and time again.
Why is it that we struggle so much with being honest? There are many reasons, but here are just a few. You may lie because you don’t want to get in trouble for something that happened. You may lie because you don’t want to hurt someone’s feelings or lose your relationship with them if you told them the truth. You may lie because you want to take advantage of someone or gain control over a situation. There are countless other reasons, but most of them seem to stem out of pride and self preservation.
From childhood into adulthood, lies seem like a handy tool to get out of a bind, but they are actually creating a prison for those who use them. The writer of this proverb wants us to know just how bad lying is, so he calls it a word that we don’t like to use or hear much these days. He calls lying lips and abomination. In other words, lying is something that God looks at with utter disgust and hatred.
So with that in mind, those little white lies don’t seem so harmless any more do they? God sees just how damaging every lie really is, and he watches day by day as the father of lies, Satan, turns more and more people to diminish how horrible lies really are. Lies produce nothing but destroyed trust, and when trust is broken it becomes very difficult to ever believe the lying person again.
This is why the second part of this proverb is so interesting. Who does God look at with delight? You would think that the writer of this proverb would say, “Those who speak truth are his delight” because that is the contrast to the person with lying lips. But instead, he says that it is the person who “acts faithfully”. This is not a mistake.
In order to be faithful in your actions, you have to be genuine in your speech. If you say that you are going to wash the dishes, and you do, then you are considered faithful because you lived up to what you said. In other words, an honest person’s words are proven by the actions that fulfill them. The reason this delights God is because this is how he is. He always speaks the truth, and we know that because his faithfulness to us proves it.
You are meant to reflect the character of God in the world, and you can do that by simply telling the truth. The more that you hide, the more of a prison of lies you will create for yourself, and one day God will shine light on those lies. You can be honest with others today and imitate your Father God, and in doing so you will have more freedom and hope than any lie could give you.
