Dear Friends,
It has been said that ‘Things
come apart so easily when they've been held together by lies or deceit.”
I learned that lesson
early on in my ministry. I was teaching and coaching at a military prep
school in Syracuse, N.Y. that was struggling financially. We were being taken over
by another school and each member of our faculty was to be evaluated by a
faculty member of from the takeover school, and that interview would determine
if we would be retained when the schools merged.
Each teacher's fate
was to be decided by a 45-minute classroom evaluation by some unknown teacher
from the takeover school, and as you might imagine our faculty members, some
who had been teaching there for over 40 years, were none too happy. Morale at
our school was at an all-time low as one by one each teacher went through
a forty-five-minute classroom evaluation and then learned their fate.
Each member of our
faculty would then individually meet with Dr. Barder, the new headmaster
of the merged schools to learn whether they would be retained.
Many of my friends
had gone through the evaluation, and some had already been informed they
would not be retained. I had been evaluated, and I was about to meet with Dr.
Barder to determine my fate. Although I had no idea what my outcome would be, I
was determined to take things into my own hands by trying to manipulate
the process.
Before my meeting with
the headmaster, I wrote a personal letter of resignation, and my plan was to
place that letter in his mailbox before I entered his office. If during
the interview, I learned I was about to be dismissed, I would simply refer to
my letter of resignation that I had just placed in his box and walk away
with the satisfaction that I had resigned before I could be fired. However, if
I discovered I was to be retained, my intention was to grab my letter from his
mailbox on my way out of his office, and no one would ever know it had been
written.
Unfortunately,
my plan of deception backfired, for in the midst of my meeting, the
headmaster’s secretary walked into the office and placed my letter of
resignation in the hands. Dr. Barder quickly read my resignation letter, and
with a sly smile on his face, he said: “Mr. Crenshaw, it looks like you have
already decided that you no longer wish to be a part of our new faculty. Good
luck. I wish you well. Have a great day.”
That was the quick end
to an embarrassing conversation.
I was stunned and left
speechless. I had been caught red handed. My devious efforts to manipulate the
process had backfired and done me in. I walked out of the headmaster’s office
embarrassed and wondering how I could have ever done something so stupid, and
yes, so sinful.
Although I never did discover whether I was to be dismissed or
retained as a member of the new school faculty, I did learn a valuable lesson.
I learned that as believers we “must put off falsehood and speak truthfully to
your neighbors’ (Ephesians 4:25).
A lie is a statement of fact that is designed to deceive. All
deceit is lying, and all lying is sin, and God hates sin.
Whenever we speak the truth, the Spirit of God is a work, but
whenever we tell a lie or seek to deceive, Satan goes to work.
Lying is a dangerous sin. The first sin of judgment in the early
church was the sin of lying when Ananias and Sapphira lied to the church about
their financial transactions, and those lies cost them their lives. (Acts 5).
So let us all be careful to put away all lying and deceit,
remembering that falsehood is sin. It stifles unity; truth strengthens it.
Yours in faith and friendship,
Tom
No comments:
Post a Comment