Oh my.
Jordan Lifander is probably feeling today like the poster child for Psalm 40:12.
That passage includes these words: “For troubles surround me — too many to count! My sins pile up so high I can’t see my way out.”
Here’s the problem Lifander brought on himself.
“Jordan Lifander, a former Cedarhurst, Long Island volunteer firefighter, said this week that he was sorry for telling firefighters in the Palmetto State (South Carolina) that he was a captain of FDNY’s Ladder 133, which lost 12 men on Sept. 11.
“You know, once you tell one lie, you gotta keep up that lie,” Lifander told CBSNewYork.com on Wednesday. “I got all caught up in the whole 9/11 anniversary and just lied. I was not a member of the FDNY, was not a captain in Ladder 133.”
“Dressed in a uniform with an FDNY patch, Lifander spoke at a 9/11 memorial service in Spartanburg, S.C., last year, telling the crowd he attended 47 funerals in three weeks for brothers who died that day. He received a standing ovation from the crowd.”
Lifander described the ruse as a twisted inflation of his ego. “The lie, keeping up with it, a very big mistake … It just snowballed into something that was out of my control. I’m truly sorry for misleading and lying.” (excerpt from Yahoo News! article 2/24/12)
Lifander has stopped talking with reporters since the lie made national news. But firefighters who were part of 9/11 ARE talking.
“I’m outraged,” Bill Youngson, former captain of Ladder 133, told BlueRidgeNow.com. “I’m sick and tired of people standing up and telling people these stories for a little bit of glory. People have cancer, I have asthma and we paid our dues. In six months, we buried more people than you’ve ever seen and to read this story—this lie—it has to stop. Put that guy on the wall of shame.”
Lifander’s self-built wall of shame is so high this morning that he can’t see a way out.
I pray that he turns for help to the One who is higher than that wall.
The One who lifts repentant people up.
The One who tears down walls rather than builds them.
Lying is bad. Sometimes really bad.
But it can be forgiven.
That’s the promise of I John 1:9 that says God will forgive us if we confess our sins to Him.
We’ve all lied somewhere along the way.
Let’s all make sure that we’ve sought forgiveness from the One who can get us past the wall of sin.
And let’s make sure that we ignore the falsehood bricks that Satan keeps trying to hand to us so that we’ll build a new wall of pride and separation from God and others.
As always, I love you
Martin
