"Do as I say and not as I do."

Remember that one? This is what it seems every parent finds him or herself saying at some point, right?

That is because we all know what the right thing is for some things, and we all realise that we fall short of that in some way.

This morning I was driving to the ferry terminal. As I drove past a market, a Police car pulled out behind me. In front of me, the vehicle, a smaller flatbed truck signalled to turn right. So, I slowed. The Police car behind me started to pull around in order to pass and had to suddenly stop or run smack into the truck turning right. After the truck completed its turn, the Police car completed his pass. Up ahead, the Police car encountered a slow moving vehicle and began to tailgate it. That went on for a while. My wife imagined he was going to pull the other vehicle over. I said, "No. He's just going to tailgate him and make him nervous." After some time, the Police car pulled out into the other lane as both cars approached a turn and was able to pull back into the left lane just before a bus came around the corner.

Do as I say, not as I do.

I don't know if the officers had some Police work they had to get to or not. The lights were not on. Rather, it looked as if they had stopped for something at the market and were just in a hurry to get to work on time. I could be totally wrong. However, just as possession is nine-tenths of the law, perception is nine-tenths of the truth. It looked to me like reckless driving and a perfect case of "Do as I say, not as I do".

Here's another saying that we've all heard before: "What you do speaks louder than what you say."

A hypocrite in Greece was an actor who played a role and was not speaking from his or her own authentic self. When we read one another's actions, and there is a disparity between what they say and what they do, we might think we see an actor who is just playing a role with what they say. That is because we normally give greater credence to the non-verbal behaviour observed than we do to the verbal expression that we hear. That is what we regard to be the base with which we compare what we observe, and then we evaluate the person's total presentation.

When children grow up in families in which the parents have poor consistency between what they say and what they do – that is, between what they affirm from a values perspective and what they actually care about – those children imitate what the parents do, not what they say. In the process, they also lose respect for the parents and eventually quit listening to them altogether.

When such people grow up and see public officials saying one thing but doing another, they tell themselves, "I know that pattern". They might say out loud, "Hypocrite". And then they justify doing just the same themselves.

As someone who's been a Christian for almost 40 years, I have heard the term "hypocrite" applied to me. It's rough. Whoever came up with the bumper sticker, "Christians aren't perfect, just forgiven", must have known the experience too. One of the elements of life in Christ I find most encouraging is grace. Grace is underserved favour, so just exactly when I need it the most, right in the midst of my most recent blunder of consistency, I am humbled to realise my failure and to accept my remedy, my elevation.

Is this, then, the pattern to which Christians aspire? Do as I preach but not as I do? No. Paul told people to be imitators of him as he was himself an imitator of Christ. You cannot ask people to do that when you yourself largely do not live by what you say and speak from the confines of your own behaviour. The pattern to which I aspire is that there might not be any light between what I affirm with my speech and what I do in my life.

I am regularly reminded, however, that there still exists a distance to go in closing that gap. I am often reminded by those close to me, and perhaps that is the same way for yourself.

Children are great imitators. They are like living mirrors. If you want to learn how you are doing in being consistent between the values to which you ascribe and the manifestation of your values in your behaviour, just be around young children. They will show you what you value. They will show you what you are.

If you have young children, pay attention to how they play. If your children are grown or you never had any, volunteer to work with young children at church or in some mentoring programme. Then pay attention. You may not see any reckless Police cars, but you might just come face to face with the realisation that you wear a mask for public consumption and keep your authentic, real self hidden – at least you think it is.