“Put away from you crooked speech, and put devious talk far from you.” Proverbs 4:24

I worked for a carpenter one summer between college semesters. Being the inexperienced apprentice, occasionally I would cut a board too short. Seeing that I had wasted a good board, my frustrated boss would reply: “Get the wood stretcher!”

His point? Wood doesn’t stretch.

Neither does the truth. Once stretched, it is no longer the truth. It is “crooked, devious talk.”

But let’s face it. Stretching the truth now and then can be a handy option, especially if we are in trouble or trying to gain some advantage. But if you think that twisting or slightly adjusting the truth isn’t damaging, think again. When Satan spoke to Eve in Genesis 3:1-24, he exaggerated God’s command—“Don’t eat of this one tree”—asking her if God had really said, “You shall not eat from every tree.” Due to his clever mismanagement of true truth, Eve no longer felt that God was generous and good but rather stingy and restrictive. This distortion of the truth planted seeds of doubt and distrust in Eve’s mind that blossomed into disastrous disobedience—a disobedience that has significantly damaged each of us as well.

Every day there are plenty of opportunities to fall to the temptation of mismanaging the truth for our own advantage. Sins of the tongue like flattery, boasting, gossip, and slander are all easily committed when we lose a high regard for the truth.

But under the surface, distorting the truth is a sign of some serious internal problems. Anger is a fertile feeding ground for exaggerating someone’s faults in order to wound them when they have hurt or crossed us.

If your life is committed to “me first” and to making sure you are on top of the pile, your twisted truth words will quickly betray your addiction to yourself.