When I served as a CASA Volunteer (“Court Appointed Special Advocate”) on a foster care case, I ended up needing to testify in a couple of court hearings. Writing reports and testifying in court taught me how natural it can be to interject feeling or bias into what are supposed to be simple descriptions or observations. Isn’t that true in how we share about others? Maybe giving “false testimony” sounds way out there for anything you (or I) would ever do. But what about exaggerating to prove a point? Leaving out certain details that would make someone seem less wrong? Or painting ourselves in a better light? Attempting to manipulate or change someone’s view of another person or damage their reputation?
It can happen through “small” decisions about our words, but it’s always rippling out beyond just ourselves; this commandment doesn’t exist in private. False testimony always brings division, always breaks people apart, always breeds doubt and confusion, and always wears on the strength of a community. This is exactly what the enemy wants for the church — a fragmented, distracted people, caught up too much in anger towards each other to be God’s vehicle for redemption in our world.
God, we repent before You today and admit all the ways we’ve gone wrong and become distracted by things that don’t have eternal consequences. Help us see others the way that You do. We lay down our own agendas for Yours and trust Your ways more than our own. We pray in Your name, Jesus. Amen.