Self-deception
St. Ambrose once referred to the Psalter as the “gymnasium for the soul,” the place where spiritual athletes go to “work out” their inner worlds. That is because every Psalm is an example of the Psalmist working out his (or her) own inner world.
I like to think of the Psalms as private speech. Not the sorts of prayers a Christ-follower ought to imitate (we shouldn’t be praying that God dashes the heads of our enemies’ babies against rocks), but the types of prayers we might pray when we’re alone being honest with God.
I’m not supposed to hate people or wish them harm, but sometimes I do. I’m not supposed to pray for God to dole out vengeance against my enemies, but sometimes when I’m alone in my car, rehearsing the types of things I’d like to say to someone, I pray he would.
That isn’t right. But it’s honest.
And sometimes being honest out loud with God, hearing my soul utter the kinds of things I know Jesus would not be proud of, helps to discharge them. Not only is it a way of venting my anger so that I don’t act on it, but it also enables me to see what is inside of me and then, like the Apostle Paul instructed, to take those thoughts captive and make them obedient to Christ.
Sharing openly and honestly with God all that is going on in our souls is one way we work them out, get them into shape. That, I believe, is what the Psalmists were doing when they wrote their poems, and what Ambrose believed we could do by reading them and making their words our own.
To that end, a verse that caught my attention the other day was Psalm 119:29; “Keep me from lying to myself.”
The prohibition against bearing false witness is one of the ten commandments. It shouldn’t be hard to appreciate why. You cannot build or sustain any social relationships, from a friendship to a society, without honesty. If people are permitted to lie to one another, there can be no basis for shared life.
If doctors can lie about illnesses. If bankers can lie about money. If reporters can lie about facts. If spouses can lie about where they’ve been and what they’ve been doing. If kids can lie about what happened. If politicians can lie about the state of affairs.
All of life is rendered meaningless if people are not honest.
But interpersonal honesty begins with intrapersonal honesty: you will not be honest with others if you are not honest with yourself. In their book, Leadership and Self-Deception, The Arbinger Institute argues that the key to healthy (work) relationships is every person in the organization committed to ruthless self-honesty.[1]
For example, imagine a couple laying in bed at night when their newborn child begins crying. One spouse has the initial thought to get up and tend to the child but chooses not to honor that sense. Laying there, getting angrier as the child continues to cry and his spouse remains asleep, thoughts begin to run through his mind. Why isn’t she getting up to help? Doesn’t she know I have an important meeting tomorrow? I’m always the one making sacrifices like this? She’s so lazy? I have to do everything around here.
He elevates his own virtue while amplifying his spouse’s vices, a process Arbinger refers to as “horribilizing.”
But he wasn’t having any of those thoughts just a few minutes earlier. He was happily asleep. And when the child’s crying initially woke him, his first thought was to get up and help. Only when he chose not to honor the sense he had did he begin horribilizing (unfairly) his spouse. Had he just gotten up to help when he sensed he should, he may not have had any of those thoughts.
In the moment, however, he didn’t recognize any of that. He was self-deceived, believing himself virtuous and his spouse selfish.
But any time our minds begin to go down the road of horribilizing another person, that should be an indicator that we are engaged in self-deception.
In one of his more famous Psalms, Psalm 139, David prayed, “Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. Point out anything in me that offends you, and lead me along the path of everlasting life.”[2] Just prior to that utterance, however, David wrote, “O Lord, shouldn’t I hate those who hate you? Shouldn’t I despise those who oppose you? Yes, I hate them with a total hatred, for your enemies are my enemies.”[3]
Now, David didn’t have the wisdom of Jesus, which is to say he didn’t know God in the same way we as Christians have been blessed to know God. In his context, hating people who hate God was a perfectly legitimate and faithful posture. But knowing Christ, believing we should hate those who hate God represents something living in our souls that is offensive to God. We should not hate those who hate God. Believing otherwise is an act of self-deception.
Perhaps uttering these words out loud helped David to realize that. Sometimes uttering my worst thoughts out loud to God helps me recognize them for what they are so that I can begin to deal more honestly with myself.
Jesus calls me to love my neighbor, and a basic component of love is honesty. But I cannot be honest with others when I am self-deceived. The most efficient way I know to uncover my self-deception is to hear myself say the words out loud. Prayer, whether my own words or reciting the words of the Psalter, helps me to work out those parts of my soul that are out of shape, primarily by helping me to be more honest with myself about myself. When I can be honest, with God and myself, about what’s going on in me, I can begin to let God speak his healing words into those places.
And I change.
[1] The Arbinger Institute. Leadership and Self-Deception: getting out of the box; 2nd edition (San Francisco, CA: Barret-Koehler Publishers, 2010).
[2] v 23-24
[3] v 21-22
I like to think of the Psalms as private speech. Not the sorts of prayers a Christ-follower ought to imitate (we shouldn’t be praying that God dashes the heads of our enemies’ babies against rocks), but the types of prayers we might pray when we’re alone being honest with God.
I’m not supposed to hate people or wish them harm, but sometimes I do. I’m not supposed to pray for God to dole out vengeance against my enemies, but sometimes when I’m alone in my car, rehearsing the types of things I’d like to say to someone, I pray he would.
That isn’t right. But it’s honest.
And sometimes being honest out loud with God, hearing my soul utter the kinds of things I know Jesus would not be proud of, helps to discharge them. Not only is it a way of venting my anger so that I don’t act on it, but it also enables me to see what is inside of me and then, like the Apostle Paul instructed, to take those thoughts captive and make them obedient to Christ.
Sharing openly and honestly with God all that is going on in our souls is one way we work them out, get them into shape. That, I believe, is what the Psalmists were doing when they wrote their poems, and what Ambrose believed we could do by reading them and making their words our own.
To that end, a verse that caught my attention the other day was Psalm 119:29; “Keep me from lying to myself.”
The prohibition against bearing false witness is one of the ten commandments. It shouldn’t be hard to appreciate why. You cannot build or sustain any social relationships, from a friendship to a society, without honesty. If people are permitted to lie to one another, there can be no basis for shared life.
If doctors can lie about illnesses. If bankers can lie about money. If reporters can lie about facts. If spouses can lie about where they’ve been and what they’ve been doing. If kids can lie about what happened. If politicians can lie about the state of affairs.
All of life is rendered meaningless if people are not honest.
But interpersonal honesty begins with intrapersonal honesty: you will not be honest with others if you are not honest with yourself. In their book, Leadership and Self-Deception, The Arbinger Institute argues that the key to healthy (work) relationships is every person in the organization committed to ruthless self-honesty.[1]
For example, imagine a couple laying in bed at night when their newborn child begins crying. One spouse has the initial thought to get up and tend to the child but chooses not to honor that sense. Laying there, getting angrier as the child continues to cry and his spouse remains asleep, thoughts begin to run through his mind. Why isn’t she getting up to help? Doesn’t she know I have an important meeting tomorrow? I’m always the one making sacrifices like this? She’s so lazy? I have to do everything around here.
He elevates his own virtue while amplifying his spouse’s vices, a process Arbinger refers to as “horribilizing.”
But he wasn’t having any of those thoughts just a few minutes earlier. He was happily asleep. And when the child’s crying initially woke him, his first thought was to get up and help. Only when he chose not to honor the sense he had did he begin horribilizing (unfairly) his spouse. Had he just gotten up to help when he sensed he should, he may not have had any of those thoughts.
In the moment, however, he didn’t recognize any of that. He was self-deceived, believing himself virtuous and his spouse selfish.
But any time our minds begin to go down the road of horribilizing another person, that should be an indicator that we are engaged in self-deception.
In one of his more famous Psalms, Psalm 139, David prayed, “Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. Point out anything in me that offends you, and lead me along the path of everlasting life.”[2] Just prior to that utterance, however, David wrote, “O Lord, shouldn’t I hate those who hate you? Shouldn’t I despise those who oppose you? Yes, I hate them with a total hatred, for your enemies are my enemies.”[3]
Now, David didn’t have the wisdom of Jesus, which is to say he didn’t know God in the same way we as Christians have been blessed to know God. In his context, hating people who hate God was a perfectly legitimate and faithful posture. But knowing Christ, believing we should hate those who hate God represents something living in our souls that is offensive to God. We should not hate those who hate God. Believing otherwise is an act of self-deception.
Perhaps uttering these words out loud helped David to realize that. Sometimes uttering my worst thoughts out loud to God helps me recognize them for what they are so that I can begin to deal more honestly with myself.
Jesus calls me to love my neighbor, and a basic component of love is honesty. But I cannot be honest with others when I am self-deceived. The most efficient way I know to uncover my self-deception is to hear myself say the words out loud. Prayer, whether my own words or reciting the words of the Psalter, helps me to work out those parts of my soul that are out of shape, primarily by helping me to be more honest with myself about myself. When I can be honest, with God and myself, about what’s going on in me, I can begin to let God speak his healing words into those places.
And I change.
[1] The Arbinger Institute. Leadership and Self-Deception: getting out of the box; 2nd edition (San Francisco, CA: Barret-Koehler Publishers, 2010).
[2] v 23-24
[3] v 21-22
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