But you desire honesty from the heart, so you can teach me to be wise in my inmost being. (Psalm 51:6 NLT)

    Let’s talk about laws — at least a few of them. Take a regard for truthfulness, for example. Respect for truth is something that should be established at the very beginning of childhood. It was an issue that God said was important when he first confronted Israel with his plan of righteous living.

    My youth was marked by the emphasis that my father placed upon telling the truth — whatever the consequences. In my earliest childhood, he made it plain that lying would be met with the severest of punishments. Truthfulness, on the other hand, would be enthusiastically affirmed. I soon found out that he meant what he said. It was better, I learned, to own up to bad behavior than to attempt to cover it up — Watergate style. He had a way of finding things out, and improper behavior compounded by lying was the ultimate in family crime at our house. If such an occasion arose, he threw the book at me. I’m glad he did.

    My father did see this thing both ways, and he was equally diligent about accepting, affirming, and rewarding me when he knew that I had faced the truth, even when it was painful.

    By the age of five or six, truth telling had become an automatic thing. I remember the day when the observance of this basic rule of family conduct really paid off. Someone had set the underbrush on fire in an empty lot near our home. Before long, the firemen arrived with their hoses and went to work. Right behind them were the police with their questions. Someone pointed the finger of suspicion at me since it was apparently known that I had been seen that day with matches in my hands. It didn’t take long for the policeman to become quite sure I was guilty.

“I’m just going to ask the question once...”

    I remember my father taking me aside and saying, “I’m just going to ask the question once: did you have anything to do with the start of the fire?” My negative answer was all that he needed. He never asked a follow-up question. He never demanded any kind of proof. He never had to. My word was sufficient. He informed the police that I was not guilty, and they resumed their investigation. Later in the day, another boy confessed to the arson, and I learned the inestimable value of establishing my credibility.

    I would like to suggest that my father was a foresightful man. He had known that there would come times when truth telling would be absolutely essential. In order to avoid impulsive reaction when a crisis arose, he had ground into me a regard for truth and the habit of facing it, no matter what the result. When the moment came in which truth was all important, he could trust my word. That was my dad’s day when foresight paid off. Mine too!

 

Print this Article Send it to a Friend Heartlight encourages you to share this material with others in church bulletins, personal emails and other non-commercial uses. Please see our Usage Guidelines for more information.	Integrity
	ALL of Heartlight        --- ARTICLES   A Taste of Home   Caring Touch   Diary of God   Hope from the Hill Country   Just for Men   Just for Women   Leading in Hope   Love, Sex & Marriage   Making Life Work   Prayer for the Nation   Single...Not Alone   Special Features   Timely Truths   Together in His Grace   Two Minute Meditations        --- DEVOTIONALS   Charles Spurgeon   Daily Wisdom   My Utmost for His Highest   Praying with Paul   Quotemeal   Today's Verse   What Jesus Did

© Excerpted with permission from The Heart of a Father, a compilation of great stories about fathers, edited by Wayne Holmes. Click here to buy this title online!

Title: "Life in White Water"
Author: Gordon MacDonald
Publication Date: February 2, 2003