Unless you just crawled out of a cave, you’re familiar with the acronym WYSIWYG; “What you see is what you get.”  Psalm 12, from today’s readings in The One Year Bible, speaks to the reality that people are rarely WYSIWYG.  We tend more toward WYSAWYG, or “What you see AIN’T what you get.

1 Help, O Lord, for the godly are fast disappearing!
The faithful have vanished from the earth!
2 Neighbors lie to each other,
speaking with flattering lips and deceitful hearts.

Speaking “with flattering lips and deceitful hearts” is apparently nothing new.  In fact, it’s a timeless problem all of us suffer.  In the best sense we behave this way because it’s easier to say what people want to hear than it is to speak the truth in love.   In the worst sense we do so because we care only about “#1″ and we’ll say (and do) whatever it takes to satisfy ourselves regardless of the impact on our neighbors.

The author of the Psalm offered up one solution as to how God might rectify the situation…

3 May the Lord cut off their flattering lips
and silence their boastful tongues.

OUCH!  That seems a bit harsh – especially since I’m just as guilty of being WYSAWYG as the next guy.  I think I’ll offer up a less violent request:

God: Forgive us all for being WYSAWYG people, and by your Spirit at work within us, transform us to be as WYSIWYG as Jesus was.  Amen.