Meaningful Connection Is Built On Truth

​I've had two meaningful dinners this week with friends. And at the heart of what made those dinners so meaningful, what made them feel so life-giving, was that during both of those dinners I got to show up and be who I am. Maybe that doesn't seem like such a big deal for many of you, but for this guy, a guy who has previously maintained significant relationships in his life by pretending to be someone else - by LYING - that's a big deal.

In the bible, one of the seven things God says he hates is lying. It’s an interesting word to land on in that list, especially in a world where lying feels almost ordinary.

Studies show that most people tell at least one lie within minutes of meeting someone new. Most of them are small white lies, harmless exaggerations, softened truths meant to make us seem a little better, a little more likable, a little more put together. But maybe that’s exactly why God hates lying. Not because it’s a bad thing to do, immoral, but because it breaks the very thing he loves most: connection.

Every lie we tell, big or small, builds a thin wall between who we really are and who we want others to believe we are. Over time, those walls become thick enough to keep us from being known at all.

Here’s the harder truth: sometimes we don’t lie simply because we want to. We lie because we feel like we have to. Our culture prizes image over authenticity, perfection over honesty. We live in a world that rewards performance, not presence. Even when we don’t mean to, we create environments at work, in church, online - where people feel pressure to be who they think they need to be rather than who they really are.

And I can attest, it is possible to start lying so frequently about who you are that even YOU can come to a place where you have no idea who you really are.

We long for connection, but we hide behind the very words that make it impossible. God made us for relationship, with him and with one another, but honesty is the foundation of both. When we trade truth for image, we settle for fitting in instead of belonging.

Maybe God hates lying because it keeps us from the one thing he designed us to need most, community built on truth. The irony is that many of us lie to fit in, when in reality, truth is the only way we’ll ever truly belong.

Dinners where you feel like you totally belong are dinners you show up to knowing you don't have to bring an alternative version of you to the table.

Find the community where you can belong, the community that lets you show up in truth.

And be that community for someone else, the community that makes truth something we celebrate in one another, not something we hold against one another.