I heard a story once about a young man who was given to gossip. He spread stories all over town about a friend of his. When word got back to the friend, he apologized to him – and he meant it. But a wise old teacher sought out the young man. He said, “You may think that you have made everything right, but you haven’t. Come with me,” he said, “I want to show you something.” The old teacher took the young man to the top of a cliff and handed him a feather pillow. “Take this,” the teacher said, “and rip it open.” As the young man did so, a gust of wind came past and caught the feathers – hundreds of them – slowly carrying them off into the distance and eventually out of sight. The two men watched this for a while. Confused, the young man asked, “teacher, what is the meaning of this?” The teacher replied, “now, go and retrieve the feathers.” The young man snorted in disbelief, “I can’t! They have blown away and I couldn’t possibly find them again.” The teacher said, “so it is with your sin. Once it leaves your lips and your hands, it goes out to the world and takes on a life of its own. You can no more take it back than you could find every single one of those feathers.” Sin has a far reaching impact in our lives, in our relationships, and in our communities – often a much greater one than we’d care to admit. Sin and evil hold great power in our world and our best intentions cannot undo that reality.
Can We Control the Power of our Lies?
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