Honesty

One of my favorite Geico commercials is the one where "honest" Abe Lincoln's wife asks him this question: "Does this dress make me look fat?"... And Abe, not wanting to lie, says, hesitatingly... "Maybe just a little". And his wife gets real mad and storms off....


(Actually my FAVORITE Geico commercial is the one where the woodchucks are throwing chunks of wood into a creek and the farmer pulls up on his tractor and says, .. "YOU DANG WOODCHUCKS QUITE CHUCKING MY WOOD!").... That one's a hoot....

Anyway, Abe Lincoln was known as "Honest Abe"..... Not sure why exactly, but it's not a bad thing to be thought of, ....being honest.

A couple weeks ago a gas-station owner lost 20,000 dollars in one day. There was some sort of mechanical malfunction which didn't allow the pump to tally up the actual price of gas that was being pumped. Instead of registering 3.75 a gallon, when folks filled their cars up, it registered something like 1.75 a gallon, thereby saving each customer about 60 bucks. The amazing thing is that this went on all day long without one customer going in and saying, "Hey, your pump is messed up. It's giving the wrong price!".... It was at least 7 hours before the station owner realized what was going on and was able to realize he was having one of his busiest days ever.


1....2....3...4...5...6....7..... hours...


What were all these people thinking? They were thinking: "I gotta call my wife/cousin/brother/mother/sister-in-law/boss/babysitter/baby sitter's cousin twice removed/...and get them down here to get in on some of this!"....


I'm sure there were a few who filled their tanks and said: "Thank You JEEEZUS!...I just KNEW God wanted to bless me today!"

(And all the while Jesus is chasing down the street after them saying: "WAIT!... Come back!... That wasn't from ME!... The guy's gas pumps are broken!".....WAIT...COME...baaaacccckkkk!)

Honesty.

It seems to be sorely lacking today as our society collapses into a "me" oriented society. When that happens we fail miserably to watch out for one another.... to be our "brother's keeper" as the Bible states we should be.

It's an easy place to slide into for some of us. I've been just as guilty as anyone in trying to justify my actions. Honesty isn't easy.

Sometimes we just do dumb things and we want to cover our tracks by being evasive.


"Is that YOUR Twitter picture, congressman Weiner?".... or..."Mr. President,...Did you have sex with that Lewinsky woman?"...

These would appear to be questions with a simple "yes" or "no" answer....don't you think?

Every once in awhile we hear stories about folks who go out of their way to return something that doesn't belong to them. A mistake had been made in their favor or they found a bunch of cash lying by the side of the road and turned it in to authorities. Stories like this. We admire those folks for their honesty, and,... somewhere down in our heart of hearts, we really DO want to be like them.

I think Jesus said it best when he said the second greatest commandment was to "Do unto others what you would have them do unto you". (Actually, it was "Love your neighbor as you love yourself", which is basically the same thing).....


I'm sure the gas station owner would have appreciated an honest person coming along sometime during those long 7 hours when he was being, literally,... robbed.


So...if my (or your) wife one day asks you the question: "Does this dress make me look fat"?...You should do the right and proper thing...which, in that case, would be.... lie like crazy and say..... NO!....

But...aside from that... we should strive to treat others the way we would want to be treated. It's a pretty good rule to try our best to live by.


Hope you all have a great week.
I mean that. .....I really do....
honestly....