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Delivering Bad News

I have to confess something. There are times when I want to tell the truth. Yes, shocking, I know. You might imagine that it's just the pastor in me that makes this honesty want to burst out of me like a song on Glee, but it's not that at all.

Alas, that is not it. It's not the sugary-sweet honesty that I want to tell. The type of honesty I'm talking about is the kind that will possibly offend, or at least sting for a few days. It's more than just letting you know that something is stuck in your teeth or that your hair looks like Justn Bieber's.

It's truth's truth and many times it hurts. But there are some ways to deliver truth that apparently make it easier. I say 'apparently' because they are found in the Bible.

It's Deuteronomy 31 and Moses isn't going to last much longer. So he decides it's the season of Festivus and it's time for the airing of grievances. He tells the Israelites about what could happen if they disobey God while living in the Promised Land. Except that he paints it as all but done.

Granted, Moses was right. The people were stubborn and they would turn on God. But could you imagine our president standing before us and admitting there was no chance whatsoever that we would ever pay off our debt?

Moses tells the Israelites how pig-headed they are and then decides to put it all to a song. That's right, a song. Apparently having your failures sung to you make sit sound better. Was this B.C.-emo-rock?

Just imagine having a song dedicated to you with such lyrics as;
They are corrupt and not his children; to their shame they are
a warped and crooked generation. Deuteronomy 32:5

“I will heap calamities on them and spend my arrows
against them.
I will send wasting famine against them,
consuming pestilence and deadly plague;
I will send against them the
fangs of wild beasts, the venom of vipers that glide in the
dust. Deuteronomy 32:23-24

They are a nation without sense. Deuteronomy 32:28

Maybe the only lesson here is that if you want to drop some bad news on someone, it's better to do it in song. Ok, your turn. What would be the worst lyrics to have sung to you?
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