Daily Devotional for February 6, 2021
Alligator Lies
Joel chewed his fingernail. He hated writing; nothing worthwhile ever came from his pencil. But the assignment was to write a true story about a pet and be prepared to read it to the class. The only pet Joel ever owned was Flash, a boring goldfish. Goldfish don’t do tricks or play fetch, he thought, so what is there to say?
The hot, stuffy classroom seemed unbearable, and Joel let out a sigh. Guess I’ll have to make up a story, he decided. How about a pet alligator? Picturing his classmates’ envious looks when he read his alligator story, he scrawled ALLIGATOR on the top of his paper and stared at it, chewing another fingernail. But even alligators couldn’t jolt his imagination. He squirmed in his seat, then got up and sharpened his pencil.
As Joel lifted his pencil to try again, some words seemed to float across his paper. “Each of you must put off falsehood and speak truthfully to your neighbor.” Joel blinked. Those words hadn’t actually been on his paper; they were from a Bible verse he had memorized. Joel sighed. Could God be telling him his alligator story would be a lie?
Joel stared at his title, then turned his pencil upside down to erase ALLIGATOR and replace it with GOLDFISH. I’ll write a true story—even though the kids might laugh, he decided.
This time the words flowed. Joel wrote about how he won the goldfish at the fair and named it Flash. He told how he took care of his fish and how bad he felt when Flash died. Then he wrote his name at the top of the page and sighed, this time in relief. Maybe my story sounds dumb, but it’s true. And when Mr. Wright called on him, Joel stood tall as he read the story aloud.
After class, Eddy fell in step beside Joel. “I had a kitten once,” Eddy said. “Named her Midnight.” Eddy stared at his feet. “A car hit her—she died.”
“That’s terrible,” Joel said.
Eddy nodded. “I don’t usually like to talk about it.” He looked at Joel. “Was it hard to tell your story about Flash?”
“Yeah,” Joel said. “It was at first.” He smiled at Eddy, glad he had told the truth instead of an alligator lie. • Dorothy Skinner
How about you?
Are you ever tempted to lie so others will admire you? Or to get out of an unpleasant situation? Today’s Bible reading is an account of the severe and immediate consequences of lying. It’s meant to show you how serious lying is. Telling lies destroys the trust others have in you. How can you show people the love of Jesus if they don’t trust you? By telling the truth, you’re pointing others to the truth of Jesus.
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