Woolstenhulme Family Home Evening on-line.The topic: Honesty
Contributor: Carma and Steve, based on RS lesson Carma gave today and Steve was sick, staying home and sleeping.
A story related by James E. Faust in general conference 1996 is about the medical student who stood up in class during an exam when other students took out cheat sheets for the test. The professor had left the room. He said: "I left my hometown and put my wife and three babies in an upstairs apartment and worked hard to get into medical school. I'll turn in the first one of you who cheats." The cheat sheets disappeared and the largest group in the school's history graduated. The medical student was J. Ballard Washburn who became a respected physician, a general authority, and the president of the Las Vegas Temple.
Honesty is a principle of salvation.
Which article of faith states we believe in being honest and true?
A people in the Book of Mormon were "perfectly honest". Find that phrase in Alma 27:27.
What is honesty? How are we tempted to be dishonest? How can we overcome dishonesty?
Is God honest? Alma 7:20
Lying is dishonest - when we on purpose deceive others, we are lying.
When we speak untruths, we lie. When we only tell part of the truth, we are lying.
The Lord does NOT want us to lie. But Satan LOVES us to lie. Read 2 Nephi 28:8
Satan wants us to justify our lies to ourselves.
Honest people will recognize Satan's temptations and will speak the whole truth, even if it means we suffer loss or disadvantages.
Stealing is dishonest - when we take something that does not belong to us, we are stealing.
Taking more than our share of anything is stealing. Accepting more change or goods than one should is stealing.
A personal story: one time Steve stopped at Walmart to buy bananas and saltine crackers on his way home from work. After he put the plastic bag in the kitchen, I pulled the bananas out, hung them up, took the box of crackers and put them in the pantry, and went to put the plastic bag in the recycle bin when I felt another object. It was a watch. I looked on the receipt and didn't see the price on it. I thanked Steve for buying me a gift but I already had a nice watch. He said, "I didn't buy a watch." So the next morning I took the watch back to Walmart. When I approached the greeter to get the "tag", I told him that the watch had been placed in our bag but we did not pay for it. He looked at me with wonder and said: " And you brought it back?" Of course I did, because that was the honest thing to do. He walked me to the customer service desk and said to the woman there: "You are not going to believe what this woman just did. She brought back a watch that was mistakenly put in a bag. Can you believe anyone would do that?"
Copying music, movies, pictures or written text without permission is dishonest.
Is it stealing to use a credit card to buy something when we have no money to pay the bill?
To cheat is dishonest - when we give less than we owe, especially on our tax returns.
When we get something we do not deserve, we are cheating.
When we use someone's homework to get answers for ourselves, we are cheating.
We must NOT excuse our dishonesty
Some people use many excuses to make themselves look better:
*"I deserve this", "I intent to return this", "I need this more", "I need to get better grades", "Everyone does it."
To the Lord, there are NO acceptable reasons. When we excuse ourselves, we cheat ourselves and the spirit of God departs from us.
What happens when we excuse our dishonesty?
We can be completely honest.
Look in the mirror. Look with a magnifying glass. Look closely at our lives and see if there are ways we are being dishonest. If so, we need to repent.
Ask yourself the "hard questions - Lord is it me?"
In what ways does our honesty or dishonesty affect how we feel about ourselves?
I want to be "perfectly honest." Do you?
(Share ideas from the lesson with your children as age permits. Send a comment or thoughts to this blog and all can see and share.)
1 comment:
We did a 2 part home evening last night. Tatum had prepared her own thing first, and then we discussed the topic of honesty. The kids were interested in the watch return story and thought it was sad that most people would keep the watch.
Dane and Tatum both agreed that having a CTR ring would help them remember to be honest. We also talked about daily scripture reading and prayers as tools to help us remember the Savior when making the choice to be honest.
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