A Reflection
The Oldest Lie
The first death in the Bible was not a killing. It was a deception. In the garden God had said, "in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die." Then the serpent came and said the exact opposite — "Ye shall not surely die." That was the first lie ever told to a human being, and it worked. Adam and Eve did not reach for death that day. They thought they were reaching for more — to be wise, to be as gods, to hold something better than what was already in their hands. They were deceived. And in believing the lie, they lost the life they already had.
Death entered the world not through a weapon, but through a lie believed.
The lie never left
The serpent only ever had one trick, and he has been running it ever since. Jesus said of him, "He is a liar, and the father of it" (John 8:44). He does not come with horns and a pitchfork. He comes as a whisper, and the whisper always sounds reasonable. He told the first family that death was the door to something better. He is still saying it.
The thief cometh not, but for to steal, and to kill, and to destroy.— John 10:10
That is his whole job description. And the way he kills is rarely with his own hands. It is by getting a person to believe a lie about their own life.
The lies he tells now
I have come to believe that almost no one takes their own life because they truly want to die. They do it because they have been deceived. The lie just wears different clothes than it wore in the garden.
"Life would be better for everyone without me."
Deceived.That is the thief's oldest math, and it has never once been true. You were "fearfully and wonderfully made" (Psalm 139:14). The world is not lighter without you. There is a place shaped like you that no one else can fill.
"There is no hope."
Deceived.Hopelessness is a feeling, and feelings can lie. "His compassions fail not. They are new every morning" (Lamentations 3:22–23). "Weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning" (Psalm 30:5). The night is real. So is the morning.
"Nobody loves me."
Deceived.This may be the cruelest lie of all, because it cuts a person off from the very thing that could save them. But hear it plainly: nothing — "neither death, nor life… nor things present, nor things to come" — "shall be able to separate us from the love of God" (Romans 8:38–39). "While we were yet sinners, Christ died for us" (Romans 5:8). You were loved before you knew it, and you are loved right now, in the dark, exactly as you are.
"I have messed up too badly to be forgiven."
Deceived.There is no failure deep enough to fall below the floor of grace. "Where sin abounded, grace did much more abound" (Romans 5:20). The son in the story came home expecting to be a servant, and "when he was yet a great way off, his father saw him, and ran" (Luke 15:20). God runs toward the ones who think they have gone too far.
"This pain will never end."
Deceived.The lie about pain only knows one word: forever. But pain is weather, not sky. "Our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory" (2 Corinthians 4:17). "He will not cast off for ever… though he cause grief, yet will he have compassion" (Lamentations 3:31–32). No pain the liar has ever forecast has actually lasted as long as he said it would.
"There is no way out. I'm trapped."
Deceived.This is the liar's favorite illusion — convincing you that all four walls are walls, when one of them is a door. "Behold, I have set before thee an open door, and no man can shut it" (Revelation 3:8). "With God all things are possible" (Matthew 19:26). The way out is rarely the way you can see in the dark. Stay long enough for someone to turn on the light. The door has been there the whole time.
"It would be better if I went to be with God now."
Deceived.This is the most subtle lie of all, because it puts on the clothes of faith. But hear it carefully: the same serpent who said "ye shall not surely die" in the garden tried this exact trick on Jesus Himself. He took Him to the pinnacle of the temple and said, "Cast thyself down" (Matthew 4:6) — quoting Scripture to make the fall sound holy. Jesus refused. He waited for the Father to call Him. So must we. "My times are in thy hand" (Psalm 31:15). God writes the last page of every life. He does not ask you to write it for Him.
Seven different lies. One author. One purpose: to steal, to kill, and to destroy.
Vendredi Jauhar Godfrey — this world is a puzzle missing a vital piece. A piece designed just for you to fill, and for no one else. There is a place now in every one of our lives that no one and nothing else will ever fill, because of the deception.
A piece missing out of my heart. Your mother's heart. Your stepfather's and stepmother's. Your grandfathers'. Your three sisters. Your aunties and your nieces. Your classmates and schoolmates. Your teachers. And so many more.
Deception has robbed us all.
Love came looking anyway
Here is the part the serpent never tells you. After the lie was believed, after the damage was done, after Adam and Eve hid themselves in shame — God did not wait for them to find their way back. He came looking. The very first question God asks in all of Scripture is not an accusation. It is a search:
Where art thou?— Genesis 3:9
He already knew where they were. He asked so they would know He was coming for them. And before He sent them out, He did something tender: "Unto Adam also and to his wife did the Lord God make coats of skins, and clothed them" (Genesis 3:21). He covered the very shame the lie had created.
That is who God is. "The Son of man is come to seek and to save that which was lost" (Luke 19:10) — the Shepherd who leaves the ninety and nine and goes after the one. Where the first Adam believed a lie and let in death, the second Adam — Christ — spoke the truth and brought back life: "as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive" (1 Corinthians 15:22).
The thief comes to kill. Jesus finished that sentence Himself: "I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly" (John 10:10).
If you are the one being lied to
If you are reading this and the whispers have been loud — that you are a burden, that there is no hope, that no one would miss you, that you have ruined everything — I want you to hear one word over all of them: deceived. Every one of those thoughts is the oldest lie wearing your name on it. They feel true. They are not true.
You do not have to sort it out alone tonight. Stay until morning — and then stay for the next one. The truth is coming for you the way it came walking into the garden. Give it time to reach you.
Reach a real person, right now, day or night:
Call or text 988Then tell one person who loves you. You don't have to say it perfectly. Just say it.
Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.— John 8:32
For the ones left behind
And if you are reading this because the lie already took someone you love — hear this too. They were not weak. They were not faithless. They were deceived, in a moment of pain, by the same liar who has been working since the garden. The manner of their leaving is not the measure of their soul, and it is not the limit of God's reach. By ways known only to Him, the God who walked into Eden asking "Where art thou?" is still able to ask it on the other side of the veil. We do not grieve as those without hope.
I know, because the lie took my daughter. And I have decided to spend the rest of my life telling the truth louder than the liar — so that one more person hears deceived in time, and lets Love come looking.
Death first came in by a lie.
Love came looking anyway.
In her memory. In her name.
Vendredi Jauhar Godfrey
May 6, 2007 — May 26, 2026