exaggeration

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"Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart, be acceptable in Thy sight, O LORD, my rock and my redeemer."  Psalm 19:14.  RSV

When you tell other people about things, are you tempted to flower things up a little by exaggeration? I think we're all prone to doing this at times, especially in the pulpit. A preacher, when he or she is relating an appropriate story to the scripture that is being read,  can overstate things in order to make a point in their sermon. Evangelists are renowned for doing this. I've done it myself on occasions. We speak the truth but can overstretch it at times to make the story more listenable too.

But is it lying?  To overstate a subject means to:

'to enlarge beyond bounds or the truth; "tended to romanticize and exaggeratethis'  The Open Dictionary

In light of today's reading, how does God feel about this. Is exaggeration acceptable to Him? When we share things with people, is there a 'Chinese Whisper effect,' about what is said? By the time it gets told to the fourth person, has the whole thing been told as accurately as it initially was? Imagine if people were waiting to pray for things, would they be praying for the right thing? 

At times, There is a thin dividing line between the truth and gossip. This can happen in prayer groups where one person, very possibly not intentionally, prays for someone but speaks out things that do no need to be said, more like prayerful gossip. There needs to be a great caution on this.

In ordinary, everyday conversation, at times we may be tempted to stretch the truth a little in order to compete with the other person. One person may be telling how much God has done for them lately. In order to challenge this, we may be tempted to tell of something that happened to us recently, but stretch the truth a little. Sounds innocent, but is it?

God  wants us to be honourable ambassadors of His Word. To do that, to live up to the calling He has given us, we need to keep a tight rein on what we say and be an honourable servant.

Perhaps we need to avoid overstating things!

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