Dishonesty makes you weaker and less prepared for the future

Acting below your potential reduces your potential. When you act, feel, or think contrary to the best you know, you also choose to be less than you were before. Doing less than your best makes you worse.¹ You can’t do a little less without being a little less, and you can’t do a lot worse without being a lot worse. You can’t pass on obtaining more without becoming less than you were. If you aren’t honest about the good you already know and have, or the evil you know you need to improve, you can never receive more or better.²

Lying reduces your power to contend with the challenges of life. For example, the Book of Mormon provides an account of a persuasive but evil man named Korihor who was trampled to death by horses that he couldn’t hear coming as a result of his chronic lies (see Alma 30). In speaking what he knew to be false, he lost the ability to speak anything. By turning away from religious truths he did not want to hear, he lost the ability to hear anything else. His lies had resulted in losing his ability to contend with the world. Eventually, he was overcome by what was previously within his ability to overcome. Though the details vary, this pattern repeats itself in the life of all chronic liars.

As life continues, it gets harder. As it does, it will challenge your beliefs and test your character. A key purpose in life is to discover the information and character traits that are necessary to overcome what presently overcomes you. Truth is successive, and contending against it removes you from the path of improvement—improvement required in order to withstand the demands of life.³ Reality can’t teach you more while you live in delusion.

God does not work in the realm of lies,⁴ and his desires for you cannot be realized in the paths of dishonesty. God’s path for each individual includes protection from what would otherwise overwhelm and destroy you,⁵ but remaining in this path requires you to consistently do the best of which you know.

While faithful living will cause you to grow to face greater challenges, dishonesty guarantees missed opportunities for improvement, subjecting you to being overcome by what you otherwise would have avoided or weathered well. While God promises you the capacity to overcome or avoid the challenges that face you, the promise only applies inasmuch as you seek and obey him in all things.