Lies of Omission
By Jon Walker
. . . Because someone has cleverly lied to us and made the lie sound like the truth. Ephesians 4:14 (NLT)
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My brother once got caught in a lie while sitting at a stoplight in Kansas City, Missouri. It was back in the day, when kids hung out at drive-ins, and a place called Allen’s was a popular chain in the Midwest.
We lived near Topeka, Kansas, and there was an Allen’s just a few miles up the road. So there wasn’t anything unusual about my older brother telling Mom and Dad he was cruising to Allen’s.
What he didn’t tell them was that he was actually driving to an Allen’s in Kansas City, which was roughly sixty miles away and not on the list of approved places to go.
My brother didn’t count on Mom and Dad loading my sister and me into the family station wagon so we could all head over to Kansas City to do some Christmas shopping.
There, not far from an Allen’s Drive-in in Kansas City, sat my brother waiting for the light to turn green when up pulled my dad in the lane next to him. You can imagine his surprise when he looked over to see my dad eye-balling him, my mom leaning forward to give him one of those mother looks, and my sister and me waving happily from the back seat.
What my brother did was tell a lie of omission. He told the truth, but not the whole truth. He deceived by leaving critical information out of the conversation, thereby, leaving a false impression.
Some of us who would never consider telling an outright lie habitually tell lies of omission, probably without even thinking about it.
Our objective is to live the whole truth and nothing but the truth, so help us God, and when we fail, there is no condemnation in Christ Jesus because the Holy Spirit will continue to push us “until we all . . . become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ” (Ephesians 4:13 NIV).
If you’d like to receive these devotionals regularly, you can sign-up at www.gracecreates.com/subscribe/. Jon Walker writes from www.gracecreates.com. He is a Zondervan author, and the former writer/editor of the Purpose Driven Life On-Line Devotionals. This devotional is copyrighted 2009 by Jon Walker. Used by permission.
