Although this story is as true as I remember it, I am going to change the names of the primary characters to protect the innocent or the guilty (you can decide). And for those of you who think I am one of the primary characters, that is simply not the case.
The story comes from many, many years ago. We will call the man in this story Billy. Billy and I were both members of the same church. And we made a habit of going out on visitation every week. For those of you who are too young to know (or too old to remember), visitation is when church members would drum up enough courage to sneak up to some unsuspecting home, knock on the door of the house (unannounced), take a couple of steps away from the door in case there was a bad dog or something and wait for someone to come to the door so we could share the Gospel.
Obviously, that does not work as well these days. People don’t seem to appreciate unannounced guests these days whether they are church members, insurance salesmen or religious cult members. In fact, most of us have some sort of camera on our front door so that we don’t unintentionally open it to someone we don’t want to talk to.
But back in the day, visitation was well accepted, even expected. So, Billy and I knocked on doors almost every week except Christmas. For some reason even people back then frowned on having their Christmas holiday interrupted by two strangers or two strange men (you decide). Other than that, we were pretty much out there, wandering around looking for a door to knock on.
You might imagine that as we drove around looking for our next “victim.” I don’t mean victim in the literal sense—OK, maybe more literal than I want to admit. But I have digressed.
As we drove around looking for some unsuspecting soul who would be willing to open their front door to two unknown guys, Billy and I talked a lot (At least a lot for men. Most of the time it was one word statement followed by a grunt). It was during one of those drivebys, however, that my friend Billy told me what would become one of my favorite stories.
Here it is…
Billy and his wife Sally lived out in the country. Except for the city dwellers and small-town residents, everyone lived out in the country back then. One night, Sally shook Billy awake. As Billy lay wondering if it was his wife who woke him up or whether his over-active bladder was the culprit, she whispered to him, “Billy, I think someone is breaking into the house.” To which he replied, “Go back to sleep. No one is breaking into our house.”
It was at that moment that he heard glass break and what he called “some rummaging around.” So, in his best man voice, Billy said, “Sally, hand me that old pistol out of nightstand.” Sally responded, “Billy, you know we don’t have a gun.” Billy, ever quick on his feet, said (in his best man voice): “Sally, hand me that old butcher knife we keep in the nightstand.”
Sally was about to confess the lack of a butcher knife, when they heard what sounded like someone climbing back through the window. Billy said they laid there for a bit, staring into some of the deepest darkness he had ever seen. But to their benefit, the bad guy somehow got scared away.
You know, it is always the right thing to tell the truth. But sometimes I wonder if there aren’t a few moments in life that truth telling is not necessarily the best approach. In other words, it might have been OK that night for Sally to say something like: “Here’s that great big gun you wanted Billy.”
Perhaps God would have forgiven that one. But you can’t ignore the fact that Sally’s penchant for truth telling seemed to work out for her and her man. So maybe the moral of this true story is, it is always better to tell the truth.
