The Mechanic
Honesty:
Let me give you just one example, reported by an anonymous person about his father, of how individual honesty can impact society.
He wrote:
"A man entered my father's diesel-repair shop, said he was a driver from a trucking fleet and suggested, 'How about adding a few extra parts to the bill? We'll let the company pay for it, and you and I can split the difference.'
Dad refused, but the customer was insistent. 'I come through here a lot,' the man continued. 'We could make quite a bit of money.' Dad said that wasn't how he operated. 'Everybody does it!' the man yelled. 'Are you some kind of fool?' Burning mad, Dad asked him to leave and take his business elsewhere.
Suddenly the man smiled and extended his hand for a
handshake. 'I own a trucking company,' he said. 'I've been
looking for a mechanic I can trust, and I'm not taking my
business anywhere else!'" (Reader's Digest, Jan. 1992, p. 119)
Isn't that a wonderful example? Of course, things don't always work out so well. Elder Perry tells us honestly that honesty may cost us money, friends, and even our lives. But as Saints of God, we simply don't have the option of telling the truth only when it's convenient or comfortable. Honesty can't be selective. All that we have to give back to God at the end of our lives is our characters. If we have spent our lives living a lie or being one person on the outside but another person on the inside, then we have taken the Savior's gift of complete atonement and perfect love and have given him a flawed gift in return, not a whole heart that can be healed and sanctified.
(excerpt from the book: Santuary, by Chieko Okazaki, p. 23-24)