Why Do We Lie Even When We Know It's Wrong??

[alive4Him]

Bestill, i have struggled with lying and can remember some doozies of ones, but if i called up my friends and told them i think they would say nope i dont want to know you anymore, isnt it enough to just ask Gods forgiveness . I do struggle with guilt even a year after the lie and that i have betrayed my friend.and hate lying

[bestill]

Sometimes asking God's forgivness is enough. But when we've hurt someone or betrayed their trust in us, we need to make amends. Setting things right takes a lot of courage but it's also part of the cure. When we suffer the consequences of our actions it helps us change our behaviour. If you lose friends, job or whatever, what you gain is the rest of your life as someone who has integrity. Someone who can be trusted with his words. The Bible says some pretty serious things about lying and when it's become a habit it takes drastic measures to cure it. Pray about it. It can be done because Jesus will help you through it and will stand by you even if no one else does. I think it's important to take action. Also the guilt will go away because you've taken responsibility for your sin.

[MeCajunboy]

I am ashamed to say that I have a very bad habit of lying especially when I'm in a tight spot and I know the lie will buy me some extra time but in the end it always blows up in my face but no matter how many times it blows up I always do it again. I recently lost a wonderful wonderful lady that I was in a relationship with for the last 5 going on 6 years because of my constant lying about money and my job.

I used to always use the whole "Well I didn't want to hurt you" excuse when we both really knew it was because I don't like conflict and confrontation and every time those 2 subjects came up there was one of 2 ways to handle it.... Face it head on and have the fight right then or lie about it and buy more time in hopes things would blow over and she'd forget or not think of it as a huge deal and trust me option # 2 is only worse when you finally get around to it because now not only do you have the original conflict to deal with you've just thrown the fact you lied about it on top of everythingelse.

Now I was raised that lying was wrong but I also watched my dad lie himself out of a lot of things as well. I always told myself I would be nothing like my father but yet here I am almost an exact duplicate of everything he was. I'm not proud that I lie when I'm backed into a corner with no way out and I want to change that but I don't know how. And before someone says "Well Just don't lie" it's not as simple as that. I've grown so accustom to doing it that it almost comes as natural as breathing at times I will lie and not even realize it until afterwards. Kinda like a smoker trying to just go cold turkey it's almost impossible.

I will admit that since I lost this lovely lady who I thought was going to be my wife someday it has made me more determined than ever to defeat this part of me that I hate and despise so much and I just would like to ask everyone to please pray for me to be able to do this.

Cajunboy::::Better to discover your faults now before you commit yourself to a "God given relationship" Shad. One thing I picked up on that perhaps no one else will have the guts to ask is, when you say you were in a "long term relationship" with this woman for almost 6 years, are you saying that it was a "sexual relationship" as well? The reason I ask this Shad, is because if you've already gone past the point of "courting" as God refers to a mutual relationship between two people, then the "Lying" you spoke of takes a back seat to the "sex." Another words, if you're not prepared to go the long haul in a relationshp with the lady and follow the path that God provides for dating, until you get that under control , the fact that there would be other problems would be of no surprise to me. Shad, if I'm speaking out of turn let me apologize in advance and if the two of you were totally committed and following God's commands in your relationship, I again apologize....But I'm discerning in your first sentences that this is not the case....Am I wrong? Sorry, if it seemed like it was no ones's business to ask, but I just couldn't go any farther until we clarified the initial possible "falicy."

[Guest]

[kari21]

I also believe that saying, "we still have our sin nature" because it gives us a card blanche to do wrong because of who we are...sinners.

And yet, we will never stop sinning until we go to the kingdom when we die, or when Christ comes back. If you say you are sinless, or could ever be sinless while in this life, you are deceiving yourself.

"If we say, "We are without sin," we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us." 1 John 1:8.

[None]

I am ashamed to say that I have a very bad habit of lying especially when I'm in a tight spot and I know the lie will buy me some extra time but in the end it always blows up in my face but no matter how many times it blows up I always do it again. I recently lost a wonderful wonderful lady that I was in a relationship with for the last 5 going on 6 years because of my constant lying about money and my job.

I used to always use the whole "Well I didn't want to hurt you" excuse when we both really knew it was because I don't like conflict and confrontation and every time those 2 subjects came up there was one of 2 ways to handle it.... Face it head on and have the fight right then or lie about it and buy more time in hopes things would blow over and she'd forget or not think of it as a huge deal and trust me option # 2 is only worse when you finally get around to it because now not only do you have the original conflict to deal with you've just thrown the fact you lied about it on top of everythingelse.

Now I was raised that lying was wrong but I also watched my dad lie himself out of a lot of things as well. I always told myself I would be nothing like my father but yet here I am almost an exact duplicate of everything he was. I'm not proud that I lie when I'm backed into a corner with no way out and I want to change that but I don't know how. And before someone says "Well Just don't lie" it's not as simple as that. I've grown so accustom to doing it that it almost comes as natural as breathing at times I will lie and not even realize it until afterwards. Kinda like a smoker trying to just go cold turkey it's almost impossible.

I will admit that since I lost this lovely lady who I thought was going to be my wife someday it has made me more determined than ever to defeat this part of me that I hate and despise so much and I just would like to ask everyone to please pray for me to be able to do this.

I believe lying is a sin we all have done at least once in our lives. If someone says they've never lied, they're lying.

The reason it's such a problem is because we've allowed the sin into our lives in small doses calling it "white lies" or saying, "it's to benefit this person". We lie to our children saying, "there are some things you have to lie about with children". That right there is a lie. Whenever we're tempted of evil, God will make a way out. Every "little" lie opens the door for the sin of lying to come in and take over, like giving the devil the keys to your mouth. Like a virus, it began microscopic but has corrupted the whole body and left it vulnerable for satan's domination. Better never to lie. Ever.

Children may not want to hear, "Because I said so." or, "I'll explain that when you're older." but this is teaching them a far more valuable lesson, TRUTH. Even telling children, "Santa is coming and is getting you presents, have you been good?" is a LIE. When they are older, they will believe everything you've ever told them should be questioned, because of that lie.

[Shad]

I am ashamed to say that I have a very bad habit of lying especially when I'm in a tight spot and I know the lie will buy me some extra time but in the end it always blows up in my face but no matter how many times it blows up I always do it again. I recently lost a wonderful wonderful lady that I was in a relationship with for the last 5 going on 6 years because of my constant lying about money and my job.

I used to always use the whole "Well I didn't want to hurt you" excuse when we both really knew it was because I don't like conflict and confrontation and every time those 2 subjects came up there was one of 2 ways to handle it.... Face it head on and have the fight right then or lie about it and buy more time in hopes things would blow over and she'd forget or not think of it as a huge deal and trust me option # 2 is only worse when you finally get around to it because now not only do you have the original conflict to deal with you've just thrown the fact you lied about it on top of everythingelse.

Now I was raised that lying was wrong but I also watched my dad lie himself out of a lot of things as well. I always told myself I would be nothing like my father but yet here I am almost an exact duplicate of everything he was. I'm not proud that I lie when I'm backed into a corner with no way out and I want to change that but I don't know how. And before someone says "Well Just don't lie" it's not as simple as that. I've grown so accustom to doing it that it almost comes as natural as breathing at times I will lie and not even realize it until afterwards. Kinda like a smoker trying to just go cold turkey it's almost impossible.

I will admit that since I lost this lovely lady who I thought was going to be my wife someday it has made me more determined than ever to defeat this part of me that I hate and despise so much and I just would like to ask everyone to please pray for me to be able to do this.

Cajunboy::::Better to discover your faults now before you commit yourself to a "God given relationship" Shad. One thing I picked up on that perhaps no one else will have the guts to ask is, when you say you were in a "long term relationship" with this woman for almost 6 years, are you saying that it was a "sexual relationship" as well? The reason I ask this Shad, is because if you've already gone past the point of "courting" as God refers to a mutual relationship between two people, then the "Lying" you spoke of takes a back seat to the "sex." Another words, if you're not prepared to go the long haul in a relationshp with the lady and follow the path that God provides for dating, until you get that under control , the fact that there would be other problems would be of no surprise to me. Shad, if I'm speaking out of turn let me apologize in advance and if the two of you were totally committed and following God's commands in your relationship, I again apologize....But I'm discerning in your first sentences that this is not the case....Am I wrong? Sorry, if it seemed like it was no ones's business to ask, but I just couldn't go any farther until we clarified the initial possible "falicy."

That's ok I should've given a bit more background on the relationship part.

I met this lady through a christian online chat room that I was led to by a friend. We didn't hit it off so well at first due to my "macho" attitude. In the beginning I did and said some pretty hurtful things to this person but one day out of nowhere the Lord pulled on my heart to apologize to her so I did and slowly over the next few months we became friends and about a year and a half after first meeting online we met in person. I live in Georgia and she lives in Canada so I made the trip to Canada and we hit it off great and over the next 6 -8 months I would go back to see her every chance I got even if it was for a short weekend flying in Friday night and leaving Sunday night.

At the end of that 8 months or so we both prayed about the relationship and came to the conclusion that we both wanted to spend the rest of our lives together and I asked her to marry me. And from that day forward everything just fell apart a little at a time. We would start to argue of the stupidest little things like where to eat and what would normally be a small little tiff for most couple would blow up into huge arguments. But we managed to work through all the problems we had and were able to keep things together. But neither of us I don't think was prepared to up and move in the other direction not to mention all the red tape we'd have to go through to get the proper paperwork and documents for me to live and work in Canada or her to live and work in the states.

The final straw came about a year and a half a go when I lost my job and instead of telling her about it knowing that she'd flip out on me I lied and acted as if everything was fine. Every time she asked me how work was I told her it was fine and acted as if nothing had happened when in reality it wasn't. She found out that I had been lying to her for almost a year and decided that was the last straw and broke off the engagement and relationship. At this point we are barely even friends because while I still very much love her she can't bring herself to trust a person who hurt her so badly not once but twice.

So while I didn't lie to be malicious or intentionally hurt her it was extremely selfish on my part for not wanting to face the heat and having drug it out so long.

As far as your question about it being a "Sexual Relationship" it wasn't. We both from the start decided that there would be no sexual relations until after marriage. Every time I went there we were around her family or friends so there really wasn't a lot of alone time for anything to happen anyhow.

[damo1]

from damo1

high shad i had to read the post to see wear it was going and what has been suggested to you

lying is part of the human nature every one does it to cover some thing up or they do not want people to see the real person

i use to do it when i was not a Christian i would not say much about my life or my family as i have no family and have been on my own since i was 14

i would find it hard when i would be invited to what ever girl i was dating and would almost have to make something up when being questioned by my girl friends father just to keep the peace

i hear you and you Will have to come to a point wear you start to deal with this to wear you are not lying what helped me is when i became a Christian i asked god to help me with this i had a spiritual mentor and this also helped me as a person and we wear able to go threw gods word and deal with things like if i had a question my spiritual mentor would guide me to gods word

Satan is the father of lies so its apart of who we are when it comes to lying i noticed other posters gave out things too you which could also help you as a person what i would do i would take what advice i was given and if it helped me at the time i needed advice then i would take it on board some times people mean no harm and will almost say some thing with out hearing wear a person is trying to say

most will say our habits are passed on to us by our parents generational thing yet we also are our own person and some times when living in an UN healthy environment you pick up what you see in your own home and you think this is OK to behave like this

i know young boys know that i have gotten to know who are starting to behave like their fathers and have no clue how to treat a women at all with the respect she deserves as their fathers treat their partners very bad and when a boy sees his father hitting his wife or partner they almost think this is how i must behave and have not had a proper role model to learn from

i also do a fair bit of mentoring work with troubled youth and what i find is this most do not even get payed any attention to by their parents and when you start to show them real love and allow them to air what ever is going on inside and you show them you care and they see that you want to listen to what they have to say it blows them away our men in my church are very active with in this community and wear they live as my pastor is an aboriginal elder of this community i live in and he know his people very well and he often says in church we need to be more involved with in our own community their are a lot of young males that do not get the proper attention and love from their fathers and this is wear us men can have a big impact in their lives

a lot of churches do not do this to wear they tell their men to be more involved with in their own community's as if they see their is no use for the guys who have settled in their churches some just become stagnate and this does not help when men have gifts that can be used to reach out to a younger male generation

i know what you mean when it comes to relationships also as i had this problem when i was a young Christian and i would not tell those close to me with the amount off different girls i had slept with as i am the type of man that can pick up women or women attract them selves to me as they tell me they see something in me that they have not seen in other men they found them selves interested in and this was a big problem for me i new what it said in gods word but i found it hard to apply gods word into my life i would put a mask on and only tell people in the church i was in to what i wanted them to hear as if they heard the truth of what i was doing i don't think most would have liked the full answer

as i use to hate it when some one would say how are you and i would say do you really want to know i would also say why are you asking me how i am do you care for me as a person or are you just trying to show the pastor that you are putting to practice to what he is saying this would almost stop them in their tracks as this is what i was like with people

though i nailed this to the cross and ever since its been nailed to the cross god has helped me and i don't lie no more i do not even have this problem wear i did have when i was young wear i say no to my manly urges when it comes to a single women attracting her self to me to wear i almost know wear this will lead if i am with a sister in Christ i make sure i have a male friend with me or we are in an open space like the mall wear nothing can happen this shows the women you respect her as a person and she sees that you will not try to crack on to her

i am not sure wear you are in your walk but when you come to that point ask Jesus into your life and ask him to help you and you will find he will be real about it as you know your own flaws very well like i know my own flaws and do not beat your self up if you fail or if you slip you are human to many Christians like to play the guilt trip game and i am sure most have slipped up them selves and dare not tell any one what their slip up wear so do not beat your self up

step by step and you will begin to see for your self lying is no good i am very open know i am very honest and when i share or when i speak i notice some can not handle my honesty i am very open with my 10yr old boy and my self and his mother work together we never twist the truth we tell him when he asks a question with out trying to make up an excuse to not answer his question this is the way he has been brought up as our parents held back a lot of things and we said we will not do this with Ethan my son is 10yrs old and has a 13 yr old girl chasing after him as he has found out know he likes girls for a long time he hated girls its a boy thing but know you can not get him away from girls and his mates at school get jealous of my son he takes after me has my DNA and his mothers DNA but has my skin color my eyes color is brown and i told her he will not turn out white i have olive skin and Ethan knows how to treat a girl and he him self knows lying is no good when he does some thing wrong he mans up about it as he sees dad like this so this is how i brought my own son up

so i hope what i have shared helps in some ways just find some one you can trust and begin to work at some issues it will not happen straight away but you will notice the change

when my divorce came threw in 2000 i have been on my own since 2000 i slipped up tiwce but i repented of this and stoped it from going further with the women that had attracted her self to me and we are good friends as she appreciated my honesty i told her i did not want to hurt her as a person i was very attracted to her and i said nothing agianst you but i need to sort my head out and sort my self out as when we are like this we will do what our human nature does best to wear we try to pleas our flesh i am now in a new relationship i met my partner who is a pastor in 2006 and i will also be moving to her country and being ordained as a pastor and i will be telling the guys their that i want to see them become effective mentors around the younger single males that are in her church as i see this is very important to wear mens skills do not go to waste but are encouraged to use them and speak into a young males life

i will pray for you from this side of the world take care your brother in the lord damo1 damien

[Carol R]

Hi Shad,

I believe a good place to start would be prayer, confess to God and ask His forgiveness repent and turn away from the lying.

I am not saying this will be easy but it will be worth it, call on God every time you are tempted to lie.

God may ask you to do what was suggested by another poster, the confessing to people you have lied to and asking their forgiveness etc.

The scripture below comes to mind too.

Jas 4:7 Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.

God Bless you.