We are inundated with lies. We all decide what we do with them.

I used to think it was the same decision for everyone:

*When you know it’s not true, you toss it out.

*When you don’t know for sure, you wait on proof – you know, the way jurors are required to do. Whatever turns out to be lies, you toss it out.

*When you believed a lie at first, and then facts came in that disproved it, you toss the lie and keep the truth.

Pretty simple, right?

We’re taught it as toddlers. It is reinforced in school. It is required for work. Churches teach it is a trait of God himself — God is Truth. And lies? Well that’s easy, they preach: Lies are from Satan, the father of lies.

Most simply put:

Truth is right. Lies are wrong. Don’t lie.

But now I know we don’t all make the same choices about lies.

Some actually choose them. And add to them. Then add some more.

Church people, who sat in the same pews and heard that to love God is to obey God, promptly disobey him and one of his commandments in favor of lies.

They don’t love him.

They too read Proverbs 9:10, about reverently fearing the Lord: “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and knowledge of the Holy One is understanding”, then instead of pursuing wisdom and understanding, they grabbed their treasured lies. “Don’t take this away, it’s my everything, it’s my priority, it’s my treasure, it’s my god.”

They don’t fear him.

When someone confronts deceivers, they trash the person who is questioning them. Then add some more lies, now about the person who knows they are lying. Because …

Anyone who knows the truth about a liar is the enemy of that liar.

When facts and evidence start to roll in, deceivers refuse to alter course. Instead, they double down. They dig in. They lock-in.

They search out people to confirm them, agree and double down with them, and attack whoever dares still shine a light on their now elevated lies.

No matter the mounding evidence that their lies are … just that … frickin’ lies, they remain committed to them.

“Final answer?” the game show host queries. “Final answer”, they declare.

“Lock-in your answer” the game show host directs. And they lock-in another lie.

Those people. Those people who are committed to lies. They are in our homes, and at family and friend gatherings. They are our neighbors, classmates, and coworkers. They are our pastors and our store clerks. They are our nurses and policemen. They are our lawyers and PTA members. No title or degree, no lifestyle or alliances reveal who the lovers of lies are.

Observation tells us who the lovers of lies are.

Once you know, you know.

And then what?

If you care enough about truth, if you value facts, if you live your own life to tweeze out and discard each and every lie, and keep only facts …

Then you change your relationship with liars.

Each one is uniquely involved in your life, so each one is handled differently.

It’s critical that you do it well. If you don’t, every little compromise of the right way to handle it opens a crack to allow their lies to infiltrate your own mind.

So how do you do it well?

With wisdom.

If you haven’t been valuing wisdom, you’re late to navigating life well. Wisdom takes time, experience, and an open mind to always learning. It starts with a little bit of wisdom in your own personal storehouse labeled “wisdom”, and grows to bigger and bigger piles of it.

If you keep at it. It’s lifelong work.

Wisdom doesn’t come easily, it comes in the tough stuff of life. It requires staying strong enough to learn when all you want to do is wilt into a pity party. You don’t get to pamper yourself when the class of wisdom is in session. You don’t get to play victim to rally others to pamper you, when the window of wisdom is open.

If you’ve been doing the high road stuff, the strong stuff, the hard stuff, and foregoing taking it easy so that you can gain wisdom, because you value wisdom that much …

You’re on the right track to dealing with lies and liars.

If you haven’t been doing that, it’s yet another choice in this life of choices.

Do you want to become wise, to handle life as effectively as possible? Then choose to do it, and plan on it being work. It’s not acquired by osmosis. It’s not a passive infusion that crosses your brain barrier from those who have worked hard for it to lazy, self-indulgent you. It’s damn hard work. It’s yours and only yours to do.

If you don’t choose it, then you are choosing the opposite of wise. That’s called fool.

The choice is yours.