A man entered a dentist’s clinic and sat down to have his teeth fixed. “I can feel a huge cavity with my tongue,” he said. The dentist examined the man’s teeth and said, “It’ll only be a small filling.” “But why does it feel so large?” asked the patient.
“Just the natural tendency of the tongue to exaggerate,” replied the dentist with a twinkle in his eye. A woman said to a preacher, “I have a habit that I know is hurting my life – the habit of exaggeration. I start to tell something and I go on and on enlarging the story. People suspect it’s not true, and they lose confidence in me. I’m trying to get over it. Could you help me?”
“Let’s pray over it,” said the preacher. She prayed, “Lord, You know I have this habit of exaggeration…” At this point the preacher interrupted, “Call it lying and you may get over it!” The woman was deeply convicted and realized immediately how wrong her habit was.
We often excuse our pet habits by giving them acceptable names. Our bad temper we call ‘nerves; our untruthfulness, ‘exaggeration’; our dishonesty we can ‘good business’. If we don’t want to be another liar, we need to overcome these habits, bring them out into the open, call them honestly by name and sincerely try to change ourselves.
A friend of mine, staying out in the countryside called me recently to tell me that along with his pack of dogs, he was also keeping a baby fox. “Be careful,” I said, as I put down the phone and remembered a story: A family found a wolf cub in the forest and decided to rear it in their home along with their baby son. The cub and the little boy grew up together and became playmates and friends. One day the mother who was washing clothes beside a nearby stream found her child nowhere nearby.
She called his name, but here was no answer nor sign of the now fully grown wolf. Alarmed the mother ran all over the place calling out to her little boy. Only silence greeted her. Frantically the woman dashed into the forest. There she found her child. But it was too late, the youngster had been killed by the wolf. Heartbroken she picked up his lifeless body, drew him close to her heart and carried him home, crying bitterly.
Exaggeration is a wolf. First you enjoy playing with it, nuzzling yourself in its seductive fur. It looks so innocent and harmless, yet surely but slowly it grows till one day with vampire like snarl and a roar it fells you and makes you another victim. Exaggerations, twists and outright lies, Define the words of fools; But those who follow truth will have, A life, where wisdom rules.
