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Have you ever looked at a situation you’re facing in utter disbelief and thought, "How will I ever get over this?" Lysa TerKeurst understands. After years of heartbreak and emotional trauma, she realized it’s not about just getting over hard circumstances but learning how to work through what she has walked through. Now, she wants to help you do the same. That’s why Lysa teamed up with her personal, licensed professional counselor, Jim Cress, alongside the Director of Theological Research at Proverbs 31 Ministries, Dr. Joel Muddamalle, to bring you "Therapy & Theology." While Lysa, Jim and Joel do tackle some really hard topics, you’ll soon find they're just three friends having a great conversation and learning from each other along the way.
Lysa TerKeurst:
Welcome to Episode 4. Today we are going to talk about why we lie. I lie, you lie, we all lie ... lie ... lie.
Joel Muddamalle:
Liar, liar, pants on fire. [Crosstalk.]
Lysa TerKeurst:
Thanks, Joel.
Jim Cress:
That's some deep theological stuff there.
Lysa TerKeurst:
Oh, I found some crazy statistics online about lying. All right, where are the most lies seen? Resumes — 40% of resumes have lies on them. And then you want to know a really scary one? 90% of dating profiles on dating sites have lies.
Jim Cress:
Not surprised.
Lysa TerKeurst:
That is so scary. It says by age 4, 90% of children have learned the concept of lying, and it is estimated that 60% of adults cannot have a 10-minute conversation without lying at least once. Within those 10 minutes, an average of three lies we're told. OK, everyday living: 12% of adults admit to telling a lie often or sometimes. And here's the funny thing about —
Jim Cress:
And the rest are liars.
Lysa TerKeurst:
Exactly. We're asking people to tell the truth about lying, and they'd be lying.
Joel Muddamalle:
[Inaudible.]
Lysa TerKeurst:
So I'm sure the stats are higher than that. 80% of women admit to telling harmless half-truths occasionally. 31% of people admit to lying on their resumes, which we already talked about. 13% of patients lie to their doctor; I think that one's higher because ... OK, on a submission, when you filled out your doctor paperwork, have either of you ever lied about your weight?
Jim Cress:
Many times.
Joel Muddamalle:
No, because I know they're going to weigh me.
Jim Cress:
Well, I've screamed to the scales, "You liar." When I've gone to the doctor. And I try to get everything taken off my body that I can before I get on the scales.
Lysa TerKeurst:
Oh, I do too. That's appropriate, obviously.
Jim Cress:
Can I come in a little [inaudible 00:02:03]?
Joel Muddamalle:
This just happened to me, and they'll ask me, "Do you want to take anything off?" I was like, "Yes, I do. Here's my phone; here's my wallet." And then they're like, "You can keep your shoes on." I'm like, "No, shoes are coming off."
Lysa TerKeurst:
I even take my glasses off.
Jim Cress:
Well, of course, there's a lot of weight.
Lysa TerKeurst:
I have actually before taken my earrings out; I'm not even going to lie.
Jim Cress:
[Crosstalk.] Anyhow, ladies and gentlemen ...
Lysa TerKeurst:
OK, so 32% of patients stretch the truth to their doctor. 30% lie about their diet and exercise regiments.
Jim Cress:
Especially around Taco Bell, anyhow.
Lysa TerKeurst:
OK, if you listened to a previous episode, if you know, you know.
Joel Muddamalle:
Episode 1 ... enjoy.
Lysa TerKeurst:
OK. Six lies are told daily by men to their partner, boss or colleagues. Three lies are told daily by women to their partner, boss or colleagues. And it says lying is considered more common among phone calls than face-to-face chats. One lie in every seven is discovered, as far as liars can tell; I think that's a funny one. And it says 70% of liars claim they would tell their lies again.
Americans tell an average of 11 lies a week. And if you keep multiplying that out, let's say if we only told four lies a day, took the average between men lying six times a day and women doing three, we take the average, go to four. I mean, if we multiply it out that could be literally over 1400 lies in a year.
Jim Cress:
And therein lies the problem.
Lysa TerKeurst:
And therein lies is the problem. OK, do you want to really feel convicted?
Joel Muddamalle:
No.
Jim Cress:
Joel Muddamalle does. [Crosstalk.]
Joel Muddamalle:
Can we skip?
Jim Cress:
Can we skip to the good part?
Lysa TerKeurst:
Yeah, here's the thing. OK, and we are going to get to the good part in a minute. But for the sake of those watching us online, on our YouTube channel, I just want y'all to be honest, and I want you to raise your hand if you have ever told these lies, OK?
Joel Muddamalle:
Are you talking to Jim and me?
Jim Cress:
She's looking at you.
Lysa TerKeurst:
Because here are the most common lies.
Jim Cress:
I'll play.
Joel Muddamalle:
You're going to play? We're going to play.
Lysa TerKeurst:
Oh, you're going to play? All right, ready? I forgot.
Jim Cress:
Oh, Lord.
Joel Muddamalle:
As in I knew but I forgot?
Lysa TerKeurst:
Yeah.
Jim Cress:
Oh, yeah.
Lysa TerKeurst:
Yeah. I'm fine; nothing's wrong? I was stuck in traffic?
Joel Muddamalle:
The Starbucks-line traffic was long.
Jim Cress:
Yeah, right, inside or outside?
Joel Muddamalle:
Both.
Lysa TerKeurst:
My phone died?
Jim Cress:
Does that count midconversation with someone you don't want to talk to? "Sorry. No, my phone died."
Lysa TerKeurst:
I had no way to contact you?
Joel Muddamalle:
I've never said that.
Jim Cress:
I have actually used that one.
Lysa TerKeurst:
Yeah. I never got the message?
Joel Muddamalle:
Yeah, never got the email.
Jim Cress:
You ought to be a therapist, like, "No, [inaudible]."
Lysa TerKeurst:
I couldn't get any phone signal?
Jim Cress:
Well, that's true, because just outside of town where we ate last night, there's a place literally down the road.
Lysa TerKeurst:
I know, I'm not saying when that was a true, legitimate excuse. I'm saying [when] you use that as the excuse, that's a lie.
Jim Cress:
I’d like to pull my hands back, because I've really never lied. [Laughter.] I have never lied; I didn't understand a thing. Pull those hands down. No, that's the only one you got me on.
Joel Muddamalle:
[Laughter.] Falsified all of our data.
Jim Cress:
I'm lying right now.
Lysa TerKeurst:
He's lying about lying but not lying. OK, so crazy statistics.
Jim Cress:
We have a problem.
Lysa TerKeurst:
I know. I don't even know, I mean honestly, why these statistics are what they are, except for the fact that there are reasons that we lie. And sometimes the reasons that we lie ... it's for social graces. And so I was having a conversation yesterday, and someone said, "Well, I have to lie if the truth is going to hurt somebody." Or, "I have to lie if I want to keep that friend, because if I tell the truth, then that's going to hurt her so bad that it could really do damage to our friendship." And so we got into this really interesting conversation, and I said, "When my kids were little, I taught them a triangle, and the triangle is this. Are the words I'm about to say ... are they true? Are they kind? Are they necessary?" So sometimes things can be true and kind, but they're not necessary. Sometimes they can be necessary and kind but not true. And so I think it's really interesting to think about those three words. So I've done the introduction on lying, and what do we do about it now?
Jim Cress:
Well, I think we all just got F’s.
Lysa TerKeurst:
On our test?
Jim Cress:
I know Joel for sure did; I did too. Yeah, on our test. We're in either good or bad company.
Joel Muddamalle:
I got a B-minus maybe.
Lysa TerKeurst:
And of course there's other reasons people lie too: to shift blame, to avoid confrontation, to get their own way. I mean, those earlier ones ... they can be serious, but sometimes lying is really damaging in relationships. Of course, we can get into gaslighting, and then we can talk about betrayals. And so I don't want to make light of this; that's very, very challenging and hard. But we talked in the last episode about self-deception, but now we're talking about deceiving others. So what do we do about this?
Jim Cress:
You alluded, if I may real quick, to gaslighting. And you both have heard this from me before. I just made this up one day, the three types of lies; there may be more. L-O-G spells log. A common nomenclature is I told a boldface lie; it's actually — you can Google it — that's one usage. But the original usage is a baldface lie: nothing on my face; I'm just looking right at you and lying. So either to lie, three ways, L-O-G: lying, just look right at you and lie when I know the truth. O is a big one; it feels like it gets left out a lot. It's also in the Bible, sins of omission. The O is omission: You're not asking; I ain't telling. I've often asked people I've worked with in counseling, "Do you think your spouse would want to know? Or this person you're in relationship with, would they want to know that? Would it matter, impacting the relationship?"
L is Lying, O is omitting, and G is gaslighting. When I know the truth, you know the truth, you're telling the truth, and you and I both know you know the truth, and I'm going to just say no. We've talked about, I think on another podcast, in the movie Gaslight, where the guy would kind of monkey around with the lights and turn them off. And it was, "You never turned those lights on." She knew she did, but it has this kind of mind game that goes on: lying, omitting or gaslighting. So those are very functional. I try to use it as a simple inventory for people: Hey, in our relationship now, have we baldfaced lied? Have we omitted ... is there anything we ought to know in this relationship? And am I gaslighting you?
Lysa TerKeurst:
That's really good, Jim. And I think I've said before in relationships, and I've even said this to my kids before, "If you'll just tell me the truth, we can handle the issue together." But if you lie about it, you're going to damage the trust so much that you're going to have two big issues: the original issue and now you're adding on top of it the issue of lying. And I think as we do this series on self-awareness, it's really good to address this. Because sometimes I don't know if it's because we self-deceive first and justify that, then creating this lie to other people. Or if we lie to other people and then try to self-deceive and justify it, just to kind of make a way to keep lying about something.
Jim Cress:
It's almost like chicken and the egg, isn't it?
Joel Muddamalle:
Yeah, what comes first? I think it's circular, for sure. I think one of the things I find really interesting is that there has to be a benefit to the lie. There's a reason why these statistics are what they are. There's a reason why people participate in them. There's a reason why it seems to be based off of some of these numbers. There is almost a hard-wired natural inclination to tell these little white lies, just to get out of a situation. So the question is, what is the benefit that we believe that we're getting out of the lie? And the image that I kind of have is, imagine having this massive waterfall and it's coming your way, and you think that you can stop the waterfall by just participating in the lie. And so that one lie is like a brick, and then you keep adding it all up, and you think that you're keeping the waterfall back.
But the problem is, there's just more and more water that's back there. Eventually those lies are going to collapse and fall apart, and when it collapses and falls apart, instead of the regular stream of water that would've come and you would've just addressed it and dealt with it, now you have a tsunami of water that's coming. And so there's a greater consequence of all of these stacked-up lies than the benefit that is the deception that the lie is going to give you. Now in John 8:44, again, this is just important I think for us to grasp that lying and deception is the favorite strategy of the enemy. So if we just think about it from this spiritual standpoint, our participation in lying is a participation in the tactic of the enemy. And we just want to take a step back and say, "Is that what we actually want from ourselves?"
And I'm not saying that you do this or I do this, but if we're aware that's what's actually happening, it might be a guardrail that can help us in kind of fighting it. But this is what Jesus says in John 8:44; He's talking to this group of people, and they're asking all kinds of questions. And at some point, Jesus is frustrated, and He says this, "You are of your father the devil, and you want to carry out your father's desires." — Notice this, the desire language — "He was a murderer from the beginning and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he tells a lie, he speaks from his own nature, because he is a liar and the father of lies" (John 8:44, CSB). Now, in the previous episode, we talked about the serpent in the garden of Eden. So you can go back and listen to that. I won't unpack it again, but I do want to talk about the progression of the lying that the enemy does.
And here's kind of how it works itself out with the serpent and Adam and Eve. First the serpent questions the validity of the truth, "Did God really say?" And then — this is really important — then after you're discombobulated in a sense, then the actual lie takes place, "No, you'll certainly not die." And then the lie by itself is not substantial enough. The enemy then reinforces the benefit of what that lie might be: "When you eat, you'll be like God." So there seems to be this kind of three-part mechanism that's happening with lying. One is the validity, the distortion around reality. Well, if there's validity and distortion around reality, then it's the perfect place for an actual lie to be, because you're disconnected from what is actually true and then the presence of the lie. But in order for that lie to actually have any weight, you've got to convince the other person that there's a benefit to that lie. And this is why it's so dangerous for any of us.
Lysa TerKeurst:
That's really good, Joel. And I would imagine too when we participate in the language of lying, which is the enemy, we also are helping him do his work for him. When we lie and spread lies, that is helping the enemy.
Joel Muddamalle:
This is a side note that I always have to tack whenever we talk about the enemy. We've at times had this belief that the enemy is equal to God; the enemy is omniscient, omnipresent; he's in multiple places at multiple times. The enemy is a created being. In that sense, he's limited in time and space. There is one enemy, and there are malevolent spirits and evil forces that are out there. But what you just said, Lysa, is so important. What if we're actually just helping and aiding to multiply the impact of evil in the world? And one of the ways that we can do that is by participating in lying, which the enemy is the father of lies.
Lysa TerKeurst:
Yeah. I've been in situations before where I'm having a conversation with someone, and I know they are lying, but they don't know, or they have so twisted something in their brain that the truth to them has become whatever protects them. And so that's also where it can get incredibly damaging in relationships. So, Jim, help me here. If I come into your office and I say, "I have a significant relationship where there is a pattern of lying. Either the other person is lying, or I've been lying about this thing, and I don't know how to course correct." What advice would you give me?
Jim Cress:
Well, first I'm going to say, "Do you trust what you see?" And if a person can take a moment and kind of quiet down, they'll say, "I really feel like I am seeing, and I have sometimes even evidence appearing that this person is out of congruence. That they're saying this, but I've even got evidence that this is not true. Or if not evidence, I've got a pretty good gut feeling, and there's been a pattern over and over and over." So I say, "Do you believe what you see? And go for your moment just to your gut, and if your gut is saying, ‘yeah, this is not true, what's going on.’ Whether it's gaslighting, lying or omitting. So do you trust yourself with that?" And I always look at the history of things, like maybe how long has this been going on? And I could just as likely get, "It's been actually going on our whole relationship." Where this person's been lying, omitting or gaslighting.
Or, "No, something's happened, because I felt like we had real integrity in the relationship, and it's just started to come on recently." If you take the word we use so much, an affair, an adulterous affair, and someone could be proven that they had never had an adulterous affair before. So obviously if they make that shift and are in infidelity, they can do things like starting to blame the innocent spouse, "You sure you're not having an affair?" Or again, back to Shakespeare, "Methinks thou doth protest too much." Or you say, "Yeah, starting about a year ago, or six months ago, I don't know what's going on. But something's askew here; something's out of alignment." And I say, "Well, let's just investigate that."
Lysa TerKeurst:
That's really good. Because I think when we are interacting with someone — and I'll just speak for myself — sometimes I so desperately want to give that person the benefit of the doubt, because I'm naturally wired to believe the best about other people. So it's incredibly dysregulating to me when someone that I want to believe the best about ... when the words that come out of their mouth do not match the actions that I'm experiencing from them. And that can be so incredibly dysregulating. So besides investigation, what would you tell me to do?
Jim Cress:
I'd like to borrow the words you just said, and I get it. If I'm going to give someone else the benefit of the doubt, will I back up, and in tandem, right away, give myself the benefit of my doubt? Where I could sit and say, "Wait a minute; what I see appears real. When someone shows you who they are, believe them." And then I think without having to go deep into some investigative process, pay attention to your internal world, your gut, praying, God, show me wisdom. Reveal to me in the Word of God implies actually in several places that what someone covers, God will uncover. What's done in the darkness will eventually be brought into the light. Lord, am I seeing this right? Open my eyes. God, help me to see these things. Am I walking in Truth?
By the way, is there anything in incongruency where I'm out of alignment myself, like I'm lying or being self-deceived? And then I think to take it out, I always use that Acts 8:1 ... one thing I borrow from Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, [inaudible] parts of the world. Put people on each one of those concentric circles, a couple of good friends, maybe my personal board of directors, and say, "Hey, I'm not gossiping about this spouse or this person, but I have some concerns here. Let me tell you what I see." If you hire a security-system company to come in, they'll come and say, "OK, you got a problem here; you got a problem there." Just kind of with people, and say, "Do I sound crazy here?"
And then sometimes that personal board of directors could say, "When we see this ..." Again, when I've said ... when common sense makes good sense, seek no other sense. You'd be surprised, or not. And some of your closest friends may say, "No, if I were you, I'd be feeling the exact same thing." And usually people who lie, even if there is “pathological lying” or their conscious is seared, as with a hot iron, if I've learned anything, anecdotally, just duct-tape experience here. The lying person, I mean, I believe about a hundred percent, will eventually start leaving breadcrumb trails. It'll lead you right to ... They just can't hide it. It may not happen tomorrow, but in time, those secrets are going to come up to the light.
Lysa TerKeurst:
OK, let me ask you a hard question: When there's a pattern of lying, omitting and gaslighting, is that emotional abuse?
Jim Cress:
There's no question in my mind about it. And I would say if I'm overtly lying ... Disclaimer, we're human; we're real. One other thing I love about this podcast, is what they see on this set is the same thing. And what they listen to, is if we just had lunch, we're friends; we talk about things.
So here's the thing. If something like that is going on more than these stats at the beginning, where we're all admitting we've shaved the truth, whatever. And now into the serious business, if I'm willfully lying, looking right at you and lying, and that means I know the truth, I'm not a sociopath, I know I'm lying to you or I'm omitting, like, "You didn't ask me, so I ain't telling." But I know you'd want to know, or I'm gaslighting, which is definitely abusive. I don't want to put the abuse, emotional and verbal abuse, like our friend Leslie Vernick, our colleague Leslie, talks about, just on gaslighting. I want to say when I'm willfully lying, I know the truth, or I'm omitting ... you're not asking me. I think absolutely those are both emotionally and verbally, even nonverbally, verbally and emotionally abusive. All three.
Lysa TerKeurst:
So OK, now I'm going to turn to: What if I have been lying to someone? So let's flip the tables really quick. And I walk in to get advice from you; what are you guys going to tell me? How do I fix what I have so clearly lied about?
Joel Muddamalle:
Yeah. I think one of the things I would start with is a question. And so the question is: Is this something that you've done? Is this something that you are doing? Or is it something that you've failed to do? So theologically, when we talk about sin, typically it's two categories, and Jim's actually already mentioned it. Sins of omission and sins of commission. So when it comes to lying, I want to use those same categories and just put it into that same language. Lying of omission is a type of passive lying, and lying of commission is an active type of lying. We've done a lot with the active part, but I want to talk a little bit about the passive part. That word “omission,” it actually comes from the Latin word omittere. Now this is really interesting. It's defined as the failure to do something one can or ought to do.
And it's that “ought to do” that I think is so vital. And so in that discussion with this person, I want to first understand, are you even aware that you have a responsibility to do this? Or back to our previous episode, are you self-deceived in this? And if they are self-deceived, I want to then unpack, what is that source of deception? I love what Charles Spurgeon says; he said, "Sins of omission, again, are very plentiful, because men excuse themselves so readily." So the question we need to discuss, and I want to unpack lovingly and kindly but also assertively with attention to the detail is, in what ways are we allowing ourselves to be excused from the responsibility and the consequence of these types of lying, either through omission or through commission?
Lysa TerKeurst:
So good. OK, hit us with some of the therapeutic wisdom here.
Jim Cress:
Joel and I talked off camera, that he'll bring therapy — and you do so wisely, my good friend — and that I'll bring theology, and I just don't want to separate these two. A couple of things ... in Greek be continually, in the [present] tense, confessing your sins one to another. It ought to be an active program. And coming in saying, "I need to continue to do that one." 1 John 1:7, "But if we walk in the light ..." And if you're bored, take 1 John 1:7. And it's positive, negative, positive, negative, every other verse. It is amazing, truth, light, darkness, light, truth, lying, all the way through. But 1:7 in 1 John, "But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light" — that is there ... that's where we meet; that's where — "we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin" (ESV). Borrow the sticky note?
In a relationship, for every rip, there needs to be a repair. So if you've lied ... And I'm not worried about what the other person does; there are all kind of rationalizations of, "Do I say it? Do I not?" The more intimate the relationship, the tighter the rules have to be, like a marriage. And so to say, "There are some things I've realized, especially walking in the Spirit. The Holy Spirit's revealed this to me. I hadn't seen it before." Psalm 139:23, "Search me, O God." See there's something I'm missing; for every rip, there needs to be repair. Or after a while, you just end up with relational confetti. And I don't want that, so I come and say, "There's some things I need to clean up."
Like I work with couples. There's a weekly check-in. And one of the things is, I made up this thing called F.A.N.O.R.O.S.S.S. My clients know what it is. But it's in the end, feelings, affirmations, needs; what do you need around this? Ownership, I need to own this. And then O.R.O.S.S.S., for every rip, there needs to be a repair. And then the second O is omission: What are you not telling me? Where am I with self-care, spirituality and sobriety? Am I emotionally and spiritually sober? Now, I know that's all there; go back and watch the tape later on F.A.N.O.R.O.S.S.S. But helping couples to come in, but friends can do it, kids can do it, and say, "I want to see is there anything I'm not telling you to get this relationship back on the integrity basis it needs to be on." And I encourage people to do it daily. Check that [inaudible] have the daily examine to sit and say, "I need to go clean this up. There's a repair that needs to be made for the rip that I've done with lying."
Joel Muddamalle:
And my encouragement to that person, at least because you asked, "What if you're the one doing it?" At some level, we think ... And if you're doing it, and you're in this situation right now, you think that there's a convenience to your lies. You think it's convenient; you think it's going to save you from something; you think it's going to lessen the pain of something, the anxiety of something. I just want you to know that there is no convenience when it comes to these types of lies; it's going to have severe consequences. And so like what you said, Jim, the rip and the repair. I mean, even just the image over here, it would've been so much easier to handle the rip of a half piece of a sticky versus all of this confetti that's over here. And so if you think that there's a convenience to it, there just is not.
Lysa TerKeurst:
One thing I'll say — and I think this would be a good point to end on — is lying affects trust. Trust is the oxygen of all human relationships, and once there's been that rip, that break in trust because of a lie, truth has got to come in. And there's two ways that truth can come in, either by discovery or admission.
And I can just speak from experience as person being lied to, if I have to work to discover and then they admit to that discovery but they never admit past my discovery, they always wait to get caught in a lie before they admit the lie. Whereas, if they would've just come clean at the beginning and just done a disclosure of what the truth actually is, I can handle that and that will help me later as we have to rebuild trust. But if this person never admits more than I can discover, it's super incredibly hard to repair that trust. And trust, as you taught me, Jim, is built time plus believable behavior. And I want to add, and track record. And I think this is an old AA statement: nine miles in, nine miles out.
Jim Cress:
And we stay as sick as our secrets, to borrow from our friends at AA. And it's like, "I don't know when you're going to get caught with that." You know what I've seen though? It's like a cascading thing, when the day I get busted, and I know it, even for a narcissist, that's going to catch up with the person. I don't know when, but by that time, the relationship is so foundationally destroyed. It's like the foundation, the crawl space has been eaten alive with termites, and one day the whole thing collapses. I don't know when that is.
So my side of the street ... and we talk about it a lot, clean up your side of the street. Am I lying to myself? Am I trying to lie to God? And am I lying to someone else? I reserve the right at any point. And may I say ... let's take the word right out; it's so overused. I reserve the reason to be able to go and say, "
Joel, I need to clear some things up with you." Big or small, whatever size, "I want to be in integrity, and I need to clean some up." And when I do that, I have to let ... you go ... you say, "Well, then you revised the history, Jim; our whole friendship you've been lying." I go, "Yeah, I can't do damage control there, but I'm going to at least clean my side of the street up." In grace, not just coming and blasting you, "Here's some truth." But I want to be able to say, "I need to put some cards on the table."
Lysa TerKeurst:
And I think one of the best ways to start to rebuild trust — and that could be a whole another episode. But just so we can end with, "OK, well if I've been lying, then how do I rebuild that trust?" I would, if they've caught you in a lie, be eager to let them see whatever it is they need to see in order to believe the behavior now. And so don't wait for them to say, "Can I see your phone? Have you been texting someone you shouldn't?" Be eager to say, "Hey, I want to show you the text that I've sent today, because I want to start building a track record of believable behavior." And doing that consistently over a good long period of time, it is possible to start rebuilding trust.
Jim Cress:
How I teach that, and you've had to hear it from me, is I want this person — male or female — I want them to be structuring safety ... just what Lysa said. Try to structure safety for that person to walk into if you've betrayed them. This person needs to be structuring safety; the person over here will then be searching for safety. You say so brilliantly, the proactive nature you've stated, "Here's everything." Versus I sit back and wait till a person asks, get ahead of it by saying, "I want to structure safety with you." And all kinds of people, even after betrayal, can heal.
Lysa TerKeurst:
One of the most repairing statements that I think a person can say to me, if I've been lied to in a deep way, like a betrayal inside of a relationship ... One of the best things that someone can say when I get triggered in ... "I fear, are you telling the truth? Or are you lying again? Or what's really going on here?" One of the greatest things that, that person can say instead of, "Aren't you over this yet?"
If they say that, that negates a lot of believable behavior, and we’re right back to ground zero. But instead, if they say, "Of course you're feeling uncertain; of course you're struggling with trust. Of course you're getting triggered, because the lie that I told you, or the lies that I told you, have created within you this certain trauma that needs to be repaired. Of course you're feeling that way. Now, what do you need? Do you need to have a conversation? Do you need time with yourself? Do you need to see my phone? Do you need to see my computer? What do you need?" Because if that person's then telling the truth, they should be very eager to show you the actual truth. Wow, long episode, good episode on lying. And thanks guys for helping all of us know what to do biblically and therapeutically in a situation of lying.