Do not swear

James 5:12 "But above all things, my brethren, swear not, neither by heaven, neither by the earth, neither by any other oath: but let your yea be yea; and your nay, nay; lest ye fall into condemnation." Many times in my life I have heard people try to convince others of something and they will say something like I swear on my brothers grave, that is true. As I tried to understand the meaning of swear, I saw this meaning: In swearing to call a person or thing as a witness, to invoke, swear by.  The swearing I want to talk about is the one just described, not what we consider cursing or using foul language. When we are telling the truth, we do not need to back it up by calling someone as a witness, dead or alive. God tells us to just let our yea be yea and our nay be nay. Most of the time when I can tell someone is lying is when their words don't match. I don't know if I can explain it very well. As they talk something they said doesn't fit with something they said earlier. To me I just say their words don't match.  In this passage God is telling us through James the writer of this book not to swear by someone or something else.  I know when I don't want to tell something, I beat around the bush. I don't want to lie so I will tell other things that don't really answer the question. I remember this incident at work many many years ago. I had a company phone with an outside line in the area I was in charge of. I saw a lot of people come through my area just to use that phone and it irritated me. I hid the phone without saying anything to anyone. People that were coming up to my area to use that phone were calling outside the company.  I do not know if I had the right to do that or not, I just did it because I didn't like them bothering me. Someone went to the lead man and reported that phone missing. The lead man came straight to me and asked if I did something with that phone? Do I know where it is? I hem and hawed and didn't answer his question because I didn't want to say I hid it. I may not have had the right to do that. "Leon", he says, just give me a yes or no answer, I know if you do that you will tell me the truth. Do you know where that phone is?" I said "Yes". He didn't ask anymore questions and just walked away. I don't think he was upset with me for hiding it, he just needed to know if he needed to report it missing.  Let your yea be yea and your nay nay. We don't need to swear by anyone or anything, just be truthful and people will know they can trust what we say.  When someone lies to you, you never know when you can believe them. Many times I have seen people lie when the truth would even be easier and better. Some get in such a habit  of lying, you feel they are lying every time they open their mouth. When people tell you the truth you can deal with it, you know what the circumstance is and go ahead. But when someone lies you spend needless energy trying to find out what really happened so you can move ahead. You may not always like the truth but it is what it is and you can figure out what to do with it. Sometimes when people lie, it like spinning your wheels and going no where. God bless, LVZ