I’m going to talk about honesty for a couple of minutes. The “FYI” section of the Kansas City Star is one of my favorite sections of the paper, and recently, that section was missing. Or so I thought. I called the paper, and I could choose to have them mail the section to me, or I could receive credit against today’s paper. Trying to be as little trouble as possible, I told them it would be easier and less expensive to them, to just credit today’s paper.

Well, after two more searches through the paper, I found the section. So now…should I call them back and cause even more trouble and paperwork for them, or just let it go. Of course, I got on the phone and surprise! The button-pushing choices were completely different from my call just minutes before. But I found a human voice finally and explained the whole thing to her, and she deleted the credit. So as Shakespeare said, “All’s well that ends well.” A small matter, but we should be honest to a fault if we want to please the Lord, and our conscience.

It reminded me of when our oldest daughter, Melody, was a youngster, my Mom was talking to her, and Mom said, “Melody, tell the truth, if it takes the hide.” And Melody said, “What’s hide?” Good advice for Melody, even if she did have to have an old southern adage explained to her.

What if. What if everyone was careful to tell the truth, and if a situation changed, to make a correction of what he or she had said, so the truth remained. What a wonderful world we’d have. No more “the computer went down and caused a glitch.” Or “we’ll get that in the mail today.” Or “your car is ok…you just forgot to turn on the ignition.” Or “your TV is alright…

you just didn’t have it plugged in.”

Folks, tell the truth if it takes the hide. Honesty is the best policy, in every case. And God will be pleased with you.

37BT Bill Thornton July 31, 2007