Ananias: (New Testament) the husband of Sapphira who was struck dead because he lied.

If you don’t find out what’s really important, you can end up doing a lot of stuff that is not only unnecessary, but possibly useless.

I am learning this more and more everyday.

Truthfully, most of us human beings have two major goals:

1. To look good
2. To have people notice we look good.

It’s what makes us obnoxious, devious, dishonest and even dangerous to our fellow-travelers.

The law of averages tells us that if there are five good possibilities that could come out of an endeavor, we will be fortunate to find one. Then we have to decide how to justify the other four.

• Are we going to cover up, lie and deceive?
• Or develop a sense of good cheer, allowing us, in a jocular way, to admit our inadequacy?

Yes, I am perceiving more each and every day that this whole experience of being a human being will boil down to whether we are able to stand tall and tell the truth, hell to pay.

We admire it in each other. If we really want to look good, being the first one to admit our weaknesses and be candid about them is a fabulous way to receive acclamation. But we still think that appearing to be Top Dog–while we are actually lost puppies–won’t turn around and bite us in the ass.

Ananias lied.

That’s what the Good Book says. It wasn’t about the style of his lie; it had nothing to do with the content. Certainly severity wasn’t taken into consideration. He thought he could lie to another human being, and ended up fibbing to God.

It cost him his life.

That sounds rather dramatic, but if you think about it, every lie we tell, every time we skim the truth and remove the quality of candor, and each and every occasion that we choose to misrepresent our situation … well, a little bit of us dies.

Thank you for enjoying Words from Dic(tionary) —  J.R. Practix