Honesty, what is it in today’s world?

Honesty, what is it in today’s world? Am I the only one who struggles with it?

The dictionary says it means; the quality or fact of being honest, uprightness and fairness, truthfulness, sincerity, or frankness, freedom from deceit or fraud.
So how does this play out in our “me first or what can you do for me world”? Is it possible? How do you experience honesty?
We have all burnt others and been burnt by dishonesty.
I have found that we tend to tell people what they want to hear. In fact it seems sometimes that we are almost expected to. Is that being honest, fair or truthful? Sometimes it plays out like this; we are told something only to find out later that the same person contradicted that message to someone else.
Or we agree to something while all the time resenting it and perhaps sharing that resentment with others. Is that being honest, fair or truthful?
In Hollywood marriages dissolve and yet the parties involved still claim their love for each other. Are they being honest?
In the old days they may have categorised this all under lying or deceit. I have been guilty of this because it seems easier at the time than hurting someone’s feelings. Why do we do this when many of us can discern what is true and look through what isn’t? Dishonesty can be very hurtful. Yet it is so prevalent in today’s society. It seems to be just another signal that we have lost perspective of what sin is.

Below are the results of sin entering the world;
Genesis 3:16 to 19
To the woman he said, “I will make your pains in childbearing very severe; with painful labour you will give birth to children. Your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you.” To Adam he said, “Because you listened to your wife and ate fruit from the tree about which I commanded you, ‘You must not eat from it,’ “Cursed is the ground because of you;  through painful toil you will eat food from it all the days of your life. It will produce thorns and thistles for you, and you will eat the plants of the field. By the sweat of your brow you will eat your food until you return to the ground, since from it you were taken; for dust you are and to dust you will return.”

Mankind has found all kinds of different means to make the results of sin as described above comfortable and they have encouraged more sin. Below is what the Bible has to say about peoples performance in the end times;

1 Timothy 3:1-5, 13-16
This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come. For men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, Without natural affection, truce breakers, false accusers, incontinent, fierce, despisers of those that are good, Traitors, heady, highminded, lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God; Having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof: from such turn away. But evil men and seducers shall wax worse and worse, deceiving, and being deceived. But continue thou in the things which thou hast learned and hast been assured of, knowing of whom thou hast learned them; And that from a child thou hast known the holy scriptures, which are able to make thee wise unto salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus. All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness

The above verses paint a pretty good picture of what is happening, don’t they. We gloss things over, whether at home, work or in church board rooms, sometimes to save face, protect opportunity or to protect people. Have we become immune to this sin? At home it may play out like this, our wife says how do I look in this outfit and the husband answers fine, meanwhile he can hardly contain his distaste. Inside he is saying I hope we aren’t seen together. Is this being honest? Or our partner who notices our downward mood asks, are you ok? We answer with fine when it is obvious we are not. Is that being truthful? At work or in church, an employee departs for another opportunity. Parties are held, meanwhile people can hardly contain their glee, finally the workplace cancer is moving on. Is that practising uprightness and fairness? At home we may choose to hide things from our family for fear of being caught; perhaps it’s a habit like drinking, pornography or an affair. Is that deceit?

So how do we practise honesty? Well with our kids many of us have a form of discipline. Hopefully it is a combination of lovingly explaining the wrongdoing and what can be done to improve the situation. Why is that so hard to practise in the corporate world?
Proverbs 11:3 "Honesty guides good people; dishonesty destroys treacherous people." (NLT)

Proverbs 15:4  The soothing tongue is a tree of life, but a perverse tongue crushes the spirit.

 

 Let’s choose to be honest no matter the cost. As we say to our kids ‘always tell the truth even when it’s hard’. The consequences are less when we’re honest.