As a human race, we have a lot of disagreements. However, I think there are two things that everyone on earth, regardless of race, religion, politics and wealth, can agree upon:

1. No one needed a fourth Indiana Jones movie
2. Magic is the best thing ever

I believe that if you’re good at magic, you’ll never have an enemy again. Just imagine if the President of the United States could do magic. During the State of the Union Address, he’d be talking about his policy, and the camera would pan around to Senators being crabby like normal. But then at the end, he pulls out a deck of cards and tells the Speaker of the House to imagine a card and pull it out. The Speaker imagines his card, but can’t find it in the deck. Where is it? He’s on national TV, and he’s getting a little flustered. Finally, the President saves him by pointing to the American flag behind him. What’s that? The Speaker unfurls the flag to find the stars arranged to form the very card he was imagining: the ace of spades. The place erupts, the President is a hero, and the next day, everyone signs up for Obamacare.

I’m not the President, but I do teach second grade boys Sunday School and lead Junior Church once a month. And if there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s that there’s no faster way to get kids on your side than to say the words, “I’ve got a magic trick.” So for the past two years or so, I’ve ended my Junior Church message with some sort of magic trick illustration.

There’s only one problem with that: I am terrible at magic.

When I say, “I don’t know if this will work,” during a trick, I’m not trying to build up suspense or anything. I honestly don’t know if it will work. You know how little kids are always trying to show you magic tricks they’ve learned? They go “Pick a card! OK was it this one? No? Was it this one? This one? Uhhhhhhhhhh, this one?” I’ve done that too.

At age 28.

In front of 100 people.

I finally figured out that the problem is I’m bad at magic because I’m bad at lying. When it comes down to it, magic is about selling a lie to a large group of people. And when I try to tell people the ball is in this hand when I KNOW it’s really in that hand, things go downhill quick.

When it comes down to it, magic is about selling a lie to a large group of people.

I always thought I was good at lying. Not like world-class or anything, but ya know, probably slightly above average. Then, last year I started playing a card game called “Bull” with Deserae’s family after Tuesday night dinners.

“Bull” (Or “B.S.” or “Malarkey” or whatever Christian swear you’re comfortable with) is a game in which you pass a hand of cards around the table, occasionally lying about its contents. If you get the cards from someone you think is lying, you call “Bull” and flip them over.

No matter how many times I’ve played Bull or how tricky I try to get, I can never fool Deserae. If I’m sitting next to her, I’m out in five minutes.

“How could you know?!” I finally asked.

“Because you’re a horrible liar.”

To my horror, I discovered that my horrible lying does not stop when the game of Bull is over.

A few months after we started playing Bull, Deserae and I were leaving the house. As we were getting into the car, she looked at me. “Did you send in that mail-in rebate?”

“Yes,” I said, even though the full answer was “Yes, I’ve thought about it, and I’m planning on doing it soon.”

“Did you?” she asked with a scary good “mom” look.

“Well not yet, but…”

“Yeah I know. You did that thing you do when you lie during Bull.”

“What thing?!”

“I’m not telling you!”

Anyways, when the tricky part comes during a magic trick, I get super nervous that I’m about to do that thing I do when I lie during Bull, so I try extra hard to not do that thing I do when I lie during Bull, but since I don’t know what that thing is, I just try not do anything, and then I screw up everything.

If you ever watch me do a magic trick, you may not figure out how it’s done, but you sure will know where the tricky part is. The telltale signs we have arrived at the tricky part include:

• Sweating profusely
• Speaking at warp speed
• Forgetting to provide important instructions to the volunteer
• Holding one hand in an extremely unnatural position before quickly jamming it into my pocket

To compensate, I have begun doing easier and easier tricks. In the past, I’ve performed tricks that have appeared on David Blaine specials. The “trick” I did last week can be found in a 5-year-old’s coloring book.

I gave one kid a pair of red lens “spy” glasses, and told him to choose one of two bags. One bag said $.25, and the other said “$100.” HOWEVER, I had written the decimal point of the $.25 and the “00” of the $100 in red, so to only him, it looked like he was choosing between $25 and $1. Sneaky!

I wanted him to choose the $25 one, then take off the glasses to see that he had actually chosen to keep the $.25 over $100. We’d both reach in our bags, and sure enough, I’d pull out five $20 bills, and he’d get to keep a quarter. The illustration was supposed to be like we should be thankful for what we have because we usually have a lot more to be thankful for than we think we do. It was kind of convoluted.

Long story short, I went into full magic panic mode as soon as I presented the bags and somehow caused him to choose the one with $100 actual dollars in it.

At that point, I had to make a choice. I could either:

1. Let him keep what was promised to him and given a beautiful (but expensive) lesson on being content with what you have that 100 kids would have remembered for the rest of their lives.
2. Clawed back my money as fast as possible, mangling the illustration and undermining the entire point of my message.

I of course chose option 2.

The 9-year-old went home satisfied with his new homemade spy glasses, and I went back to the drawing board. I’m just a little nervous that he wises up next week and confronts me about his $100.

If he does, I’m going to get REAL sweaty.

LIFE LESSON #37

When you’re a horrible liar, performing magic can be just as costly as fibbing to your spouse.