I walked into the living room and across the way, I saw Cole standing in the kitchen doorway. When he saw me, he turned and disappeared into the kitchen.

“What are you doing?” I asked.

I heard a cabinet door shut, and suddenly Cole reappeared as if nothing had happened.

I walked into the kitchen. He can only reach a few cabinets, and based on the direction of the noise I’d heard, I narrowed it down to one of them. I walked up to it and opened the door, but I didn’t see anything out of the ordinary.

“What did you put in here?” I asked him.

“I, uh. . .” Cole wouldn’t look at me.

It’s like he was staring around the room to get inspiration for the whopper he was about to tell me.

“Don’t make up a story, son. Just tell me what you were doing in here.”

He pointed to a piece of candy on the countertop.

“I was trying to open that and eat it.”

I looked around on the floor. There were two more opened wrappers at my feet.

“How many pieces of candy have you already eaten?”

“One.”

I looked at the two wrappers again.

“One. Are you sure?”

He nodded.

“The reason I’m asking if you’re sure is because I see two opened candy wrappers, not one. So did you eat one piece of candy, or did you eat two?”

He realized he’d been caught.

He lowered his eyes and mumbled, “Two.”

“That’s what I thought. Son, you need to understand I’m smarter than you give me credit for. If you tell me a story, I’m going to know it.”

The words hit me as I said them. How many times have I tried to put something past my heavenly father, not realizing — or acknowledging — he’s smarter than I give him credit for? If I tell him a story, he’s going to know it. I can try to hide the truth, spin the truth, even ignore the truth, but the truth is abundantly evident to him.

Ananias and Sapphira learned this the hard way (Acts 5:1-11)

Cole, however, got off a lot easier. His eating a piece or two of candy wasn’t that big of a deal. Some of the things we try to put past God are, though. They’re also a colossal waste of time. Because he already knows the truth.

Even if we don’t think he does.

The Rev. Parrish Myers is a local minister living in Braselton. His column appears biweekly in Sunday Life and on gainesvilletimes.com/life.