What Happens When We Fool Ourselves

What Happens When We Fool Ourselves
I don’t think most people try very hard to change.
Because it is almost always painful.
It is certainly never comfortable.
And besides, it’s easy to stay the same.
I remember a professor of mine who was 67 years old and foolish. As a 25-year-old, I thought, God, don’t let me live the same year for forty years and end up like this guy.
He seemed to have gone his whole life never changing, never growing, never healing, never maturing.
Why?
I came across a quote the other day by Nassim Taleb:
    “It takes inordinate courage to introspect, to confront oneself, to accept one’s limitations—scientists are seeing more and more evidence that we are specifically designed by mother nature to fool ourselves.”
While I don’t believe in mother nature, I get his point.
We won’t go into the social and emotional benefits of fooling ourselves. I’m comfortable calling this sin, and the Bible has much to say on the subject.
My faithful assistant, ChatGPT, came up with some Bible verses (ESV) to make us uncomfortable about this. Read a few, or read them all, and meet me at the end of the list.
What Scripture Says About Self-Deception
Jeremiah 17:9 – “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it?”
Proverbs 16:2 – “All the ways of a man are pure in his own eyes, but the Lord weighs the spirit.”
1 Corinthians 3:18 – “Let no one deceive himself. If anyone among you thinks that he is wise in this age, let him become a fool that he may become wise.”
Lamentations 3:40 – “Let us test and examine our ways, and return to the Lord!”
2 Corinthians 13:5 – “Examine yourselves, to see whether you are in the faith. Test yourselves. Or do you not realize this about yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you?—unless indeed you fail to meet the test!”
Psalm 139:23-24 – “Search me, O God, and know my heart! Try me and know my thoughts! And see if there be any grievous way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting!”
James 1:23-25 – “For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who looks intently at his natural face in a mirror. For he looks at himself and goes away and at once forgets what he was like. But the one who looks into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and perseveres, being no hearer who forgets but a doer who acts, he will be blessed in his doing.”
Proverbs 3:5-6 – “Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths.”
Job 42:1-6 – “I had heard of you by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees you; therefore I despise myself, and repent in dust and ashes.”
2 Timothy 4:3-4 – “For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths.”
Romans 1:21-22, 25 – “For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools… because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator.”
The Power of Introspection
Introspection is powerful—but you have to do it.
I find it helpful to use a journal and, after asking God to search my heart with me, start asking questions:
    1.    Why did I do that?
    2.    Why did I say that?
    3.    Why did that make me feel bad?
    4.    Why did I get triggered?
    5.    Why don’t I have peace?
Let your hand go, and you’ll discover things. Then you’ll need to do something about them. But frankly, the hardest part is over—looking in the mirror.
After that, you can start accepting what you think is true (because it just might be!) and changing.
God bless you, Godspeed, and happy introspecting.
 
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