Speak the Truth in Love

Paul Harvey tells an amusing story about some airline baggage handlers who retrieved an animal carrier from the luggage bay of an airliner. As they removed the carrier, they made a gruesome discovery. The dog inside was dead! The baggage handlers panicked. They thought that there might be lawsuits and that they might even lose their jobs. They told the woman passenger that her dog had been sent to another destination by mistake, and they promised her they would find her dog and have it delivered to her. With that assurance, the woman went home.

The baggage handlers then buried the woman’s pet. Afterward, they set out to find another dog to replace the animal that had died. Finally, they found a dog that was a dead ringer for this woman’s pet. They put the substitute dog in the animal carrier and sent it to the woman’s address.—–The woman took one look at the dog and exclaimed, “That’s not my dog! My dog is dead,” she told them. “I was bringing it home for burial.” (Paul Harvey’s FOR WHAT IT’S WORTH, New York: Bantam Books, 1991, p. 67).

My dad used to say, “Honesty is always the best policy.” It’s true, isn’t it? Think about all the trouble we are saved, simply telling the truth.

Let us pray: We pray today for integrity, O God. Help us to live in tune with what we believe, to speak the truth in love, and in doing so, may we experience your peace deep within. We pray today for those who need your guidance, your leading, and your love. Meet us wherever we happen to be this day. Amen.