Telling Little White Lies

Telling Little White Lies

This is what you must do: Tell the truth to each other. Render verdicts in your courts that are just and that lead to peace.

Zechariah 8:16

Every couple tells little white lies to one another in an attempt to be more “loving.” If we don’t like something our partners do for us, like cooking a meal or fixing something in the house, for example, we might say, “Oh, it’s wonderful!” It’s a little lie that couldn’t hurt a flea, right? Not necessarily.

Consider Ron and Cindy, who had been married only a few weeks when he cooked his “world famous BBQ hot ribs” on their brand-new grill. As they were eating, Ron asked Cindy if she liked the ribs. Cindy knew Ron had worked hard to make them and was afraid that she would offend him if she was honest. “Oh yes,” she told Ron, “they’re great!”

Believing that Cindy really liked his famous dish, Ron began barbecuing quite regularly as a kind of family tradition, and there were always leftovers, which had to be eaten. After a while, Cindy could bear it no longer, and in a moment of anger about something else she confessed that she hated Ron’s ribs, that they made her gag, that she never wanted to see ribs on her table again! Ron was shocked and hurt. She had lied to him. “How can I ever believe you again?” he asked.

Should Cindy have told Ron right from the beginning that the ribs made her gag? Not if she cared about her marriage. Marriage requires honesty, but honesty does not require brutality. Truth is brutal only when it is meant to cause pain or when it is a partial truth. If Cindy said she hated the ribs, that would only be part of the truth. To be honest she could say something like, “Not really, I’ve never liked barbecue on the grill—but it doesn’t make a bit of difference to me. I like the side dishes and love seeing you cook.”

The tragedy of most seemingly insignificant experiences of deception is that they take on a life of their own and become bigger than we expected. That’s why we must do as Zechariah’s book says, and tell the truth to one another in a way that is just and promotes peace.

Those that think it permissible to tell white lies soon grow color-blind.

—Austin O’Malley