The Lies We Believe

by Dr. Chris Thurman

  “Truth isn’t something we ‘get’ all at once,” I explained. “Understanding truth is more like trying to put a thousand-piece puzzle together. We find truth piece by piece and try to fit it together with the other pieces we already know.

  The more pieces we put together, the more of the whole picture we get to see. Doing that is hard work.”

  My daughter, Ashley, who has loved doing puzzles since she was a child, can tell you that. One mental picture I will always have of Ashley is her at a table intently hunched over her newest puzzle, patiently looking for the next piece she could press into place. I don’t recall that she ever sat down in front of a puzzle and put it together easily or quickly. And whether we like it or not, discovering truth and putting it together with other truths to form a clearer picture of reality are never done painlessly or rapidly.

  “What makes the pursuit of truth even more difficult,” I added, “is that mixed in with the truthful pieces of the puzzle are lie pieces that don’t fit. We pick up these pieces, think they are part of the truth puzzle, try to fit them in somewhere, only to find that they don’t fit and that we wasted valuable time on them. Picking out and discarding the lie pieces require hard work, which also slows down how fast we can assemble the truth puzzle.”

  “I never could finish one of those puzzles,” he muttered. “What else?”

  The Truth Isn’t Ours

  “There’s another sobering truth about truth,” I told him. “While we are here, we don’t have all the pieces of the puzzle available to us. If the whole truth is a thousand-piece puzzle, we have only a hundred or so pieces to work with. Even if we put all one hundred pieces together, we get to see only a small part of what the whole puzzle looks like.”

  “Why? Who has the other pieces?” Bill asked.

  “God,” I replied. “I believe that God knows all one thousand pieces of the puzzle and is the only One who does. Like it or not, the whole truth is God’s possession, not ours. Fortunately, even though we can’t know the whole truth while we are here, He makes the most important truths available to us if we genuinely want to know them.”

  “Okay, okay,” Bill interrupted. “But you’ve never come out and said what truth is or how I find it.”

  “Simply put, truth is reality as it really is,” I said. “As far as finding it, there are three main ways. First, we can learn truth through our own experiences. Second, we can learn truth through the experiences of others. Third, some truths—the most important pieces that go beyond human experience—must be revealed to us supernaturally by God and accepted on faith.”

  “So, let me get this straight. Truth is unvarnished reality. I can learn some of it on my own, some of it through others, and God can reveal some to me.”

  “Right.”

  “If God has something to do with it, where does the Bible come into all of this?” he asked.

  “Although not everyone agrees on this point, some of us believe that God supernaturally inspired certain people to write the Bible and that it is the book of truth. If we accept the Bible as such, we have available to us the most important textbook for knowing the truth about God, ourselves, and the way to live healthy, meaningful lives. The Bible itself even says, ‘All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work.’1If the Bible is what it says it is, then we need to take it seriously and use it as the primary book we study when we want to know what reality is.”

  “Yes, but isn’t the Bible pretty unclear? Can’t it be used to say anything you want it to say?” Bill asked.

  “Yes, it can be difficult at times to understand exactly what the Bible really says. And, yes, people misinterpret the Bible all the time. That is why we have a responsibility to study it for ourselves and work diligently to know what it really teaches.”

  The Truth Is a Prerequisite for Personal Growth

  “You’re giving me a headache, Dr. Thurman,” Bill said, rubbing his temples. “If knowing the truth takes this much hard work, why would anybody even try?”

  “Because our lives depend on it,” I replied. “The Bible isn’t kidding when it says that ‘the truth shall set you free.’2Without the truth, we aren’t free. Without the truth, we are in bondage to emotional problems, troubled relationships, and spiritual turmoil. Without the truth, we are lost and our lives are a mess. That is why knowing the truth is worth whatever effort it takes.”

  “So, without the truth, we will be miserable and life wouldn’t be worth living,” he said.

  “Think of it this way. Truth is the best food for your soul. Truth has all the right vitamins and minerals and nutrients in it. Without the truth, your soul dies from malnutrition.”

  “Sounds like a person who doesn’t eat right,” he observed.

  “Actually, that is a pretty good way to put it. Telling yourself the truth is like eating a meal of grilled chicken, rice, green beans, wheat bread, low-fat milk, and frozen yogurt pie—it’s good for you. Telling yourself lies is like eating a dinner of chicken fried steak (smothered in gravy, of course), onion rings, French fries, butter-drenched rolls, beer, and a chocolate fudge sundae. ‘Eating’ the truth leaves you better off, healthier. ‘Eating’ lies, while they may ‘taste’ good, leaves you sick.”

  “Thanks for making me lose my appetite!” Bill joked.

  “Sorry, but if it gets my point across . . .”

  The Truth Has Barriers

  “Okay,” he interrupted, “but it still sounds as if we can miss the truth altogether, even though we know all this stuff. What gets in the way of knowing the truth?”

  “There are numerous barriers to knowing the truth. Two seem to be the biggest,” I said, hoping he would take the bait.

  “Which two?”

  “Prejudice, for one. Prejudice is a barrier to knowing the truth because our minds are already made up. We decide ahead of time how to view something and won’t let anything change our minds. Once we have made our minds up, the truth could bite us on the nose, and we wouldn’t see it. Ever been there?” I asked.

  “A couple of million times,” Bill admitted. “I used to think that all rich people were snobs until I became friends with someone who had a ton of money but was the nicest, most decent person I have ever known.”

  “Good for you.”

  “What is the other barrier to knowing the truth?” he asked.

  “Pride. In being prideful, we arrogantly believe we know the truth, whether we do or not, and we refuse to look at the possibility that we may be wrong. Pride truly goes before our own destruction. That ever happened to you?”

  “Boy, I’ll say. Once, my wife wanted to explain something to me about our computer. I got my nose all bent out of shape that she wanted to teach me something, so I didn’t let her. I ended up doing the wrong thing and lost a whole night’s worth of work because I was too proud to let her show me how to do it.”

  “I have to plead ‘guilty’ to being prideful too. I’m the stereotypical guy when I’m lost on a highway. I’ll drive around forever, pridefully convinced that I can figure out where I’m going without anyone else’s help.”

  “You, too, huh?” he replied.

  “Real men don’t ask for directions,” I said with a smile.

  The Truth Often Leads to Pain

  “Hmmm,” Bill replied. “I can see, though, that knowing the truth is not easy. Pride and prejudice are pretty difficult things to overcome. Is there anything else I should know about the truth?”

  “Well, brace yourself. Another sobering thing about the truth is that it sometimes hurts.”

  “What do you mean?” he asked.

  “Well, just as we sometimes lie to others to avoid painful consequences, such as lying to a policeman to avoid a ticket, we also lie to ourselves to avoid pain.”

  “Give me an example.”

  “Well, let’s say that a man is a pretty bad
parent and that he is emotionally damaging his children. Facing that would be painful. So, he runs from the pain through self-protective lies. He might tell himself, I have done everything a loving parent can do—I just have rotten kids, or The world we live in is such a horrible place—that’s why my kids are so messed up, or If teachers did their job right, my kids would be fine.”

  “So, instead of facing the truth that he is a poor parent, he lies to himself by making it all about his kids or the culture or the school system,” Bill said.

  “He may feel better at that moment to think that way, but in the long run, he and his family are going to be damaged by his unwillingness to face the truth and let it hurt. You’ve heard the expression, ‘The truth hurts.’ Some people run from that unpleasant reality at great personal expense.”

  The Truth Means Being Willing to Doubt

  “I tell you what I find hard,” Bill said, gazing past me. “I find it difficult to doubt some of the things I was taught growing up as a kid even when the ‘adult’ part of me knows I should. Is that bad or good?”

  “Doubting is not only good. It is a necessity,” I answered. “We need to be willing to doubt things in order to know whether they are really true. I believe the ability to doubt is from God Himself. He doesn’t want us to blindly accept what people say just because they say it.”

  “So whatever I was taught to think and whoever may have taught it to me originally, it’s okay to doubt it.”

  “Yes, with one minor addendum,” I added.

  “What’s the addendum?” Bill asked.

  “Remember Thomas, the ‘doubting’ disciple in the Bible?”

  “Yes, I do.”

  “Well, he was from Missouri, the ‘Show Me’ state. Everyone was telling him that Christ had risen from the grave, and Thomas was sitting there thinking, You guys need some counseling! I am not buying any of this nonsense unless I see Christ myself and touch His wounds with my own hands. Christ appeared to Thomas and gave him the evidence he asked for. Then what did Christ demand of Thomas?” I asked.

  “That he believe,” Bill said quietly.

  “Exactly. Once He gave Thomas proof of His resurrection, Christ demanded that Thomas believe. Doubt is good to a point. However, anyone who needs repeated proof of the same truth doubts too much and may never make a commitment to truth at all.”

  “You have to land on one side of the fence or the other. Otherwise, doubt is more of a hindrance than a help,” he observed.

  “You got it. Once the evidence is in, you have to quit doubting.”

  The Truth Will Stand Forever

  “Is there anything else about the truth I need to know?” Bill asked, sounding as if he was ready to stop and try to digest all that he had heard.

  “Yes, there is one final truth about the truth I want to throw at you.”

  “Fire away,” he said.

  “When all is said and done, the truth will still be standing. The truth existed before you and I got here, and it will be here long after you and I are gone.”

  “So, truth has a life of its own? People come and go, but truth remains the same?” he asked.

  “Right. In our world, more and more people believe that truth is relative. In other words, something can be true for you but not be true for me. I agree with that notion if we are talking about personal preferences but not if we are talking about truths that are absolute,” I said.

  “What do you mean?”

  “The ‘truth’ for you may be that mint chocolate chip ice cream is the best kind, whereas the ‘truth’ for me is that cookies ‘n’ cream is the best kind.”

  “I see what you’re saying. Some matters of ‘truth’ have to do with individual taste,” he acknowledged.

  “But certain truths are true for everyone. These truths are absolute. They have been around since man first appeared on earth, are true for everyone, and are true for every generation,” I said.

  “Like what?” Bill asked.

  “Let’s talk about that next time.”

  Bill and I had covered a lot of ground about truth during our first session together. It was time to stop and let him “chew” on what we had discussed. In the session, Bill came to realize that you have to tell yourself the truth to be mentally and spiritually healthy. He also came to appreciate that truth, like a diamond, has many facets—it comes piece by piece, it’s God’s possession, it’s required for personal growth, pride and prejudice get in its way, it can cause pain, we need to be willing to doubt in order to believe it, lies are often more attractive, and the truth will last forever. (See Appendix D for additional teachings about truth.)

  Before you go any farther, I want to ask you a couple of questions. First, do you believe that telling yourself the truth is necessary for your life to be emotionally and spiritually healthy? Second, do you agree that the various facets about the truth I shared with Bill are true? Take a few minutes to “chew” on that yourself. If you can’t swallow all of this, the rest of the book won’t do you much good.

  Growthwork

  You have come a long way. At this point, you have self-assessed the lies you tell yourself, read in-depth about these lies, learned the A-B-C model, used the model to become more aware of how telling yourself these lies ruins your life, and learned some critically important truths about the truth. Congratulations on making it this far!

  As we focus more on the role that telling ourselves the truth plays in helping us to have better lives, it is time for more self-assessment. In this section is a simple questionnaire that I want you to complete. Using the scale provided, respond to each statement in terms of how much you agree or disagree with it.

  Answer as honestly as possible. Please do not answer in terms of how you think you should think. What I am looking for here is an honest, gut-level response that reflects how you really think. Also, if at all possible, try to avoid using 4 as your answer. I want you to land on one side of the fence or the other in responding to each statement.

  _____ 1. To err is human.

  _____ 2. You can’t please everyone.

  _____ 3. You don’t “have to” do anything.

  _____ 4. You are going to die.

  _____ 5. The virtue lies in the struggle, not the prize.

  _____ 6. You are not entitled to anything.

  _____ 7. There is no gain without pain.

  _____ 8. Emotional pain is good.

  _____ 9. Life is difficult.

  _____ 10. You reap what you sow.

  I believe each statement is a vital truth—an absolute truth that is true for every person all the time. (See Appendix C for biblical support for each of these ten truths.) If you gave any of these statements a 1, 2, or 3, you disagreed with what I consider to be a truth we must believe if we hope to achieve emotional health, intimate relationships, and spiritual maturity. Look back through your answers and put a check mark by any statement that you gave a 1, 2, or 3.

  How many check marks did you end up with? Even if you had only one, it means you don’t believe something to be true that is true. It means you are at odds with reality. It means you have a “tape deck” problem that needs to be corrected. It means you are not as healthy as you could be.

  There is one other thing I would like you to do before you move on to the next chapter. For each statement that you gave a 1, 2, or 3, answer the following questions about it in your journal: Why do you disagree with the statement? What about the statement makes it untrue? Could it be true? If the statement is true, what’s the evidence that it is? How would your life be better off if you believed this statement?

  In the following chapters, I will attempt to help you understand why each of the statements is true and how your life would be significantly better off if you lived by these truths. Read with an open mind, yet be willing to doubt—both are required for these truths to set you free.

  8

  TO ERR IS HUMAN

  If at first you don’t succeed, you’re running about average.

  �
�M. H. Alderson

  To err is human. You’ve heard it all your life. But I would be willing to bet you don’t really believe it. My guess is that you go out each day trying to be perfect or semiperfect and then feel disappointed, if not outright annoyed, whenever you make a mistake. Deep down in your private stock of hidden beliefs, you probably are still hanging on to the notion that in all you do, you should hit a home run every time you step to the plate.

  Most of us hate to make mistakes. And it’s not just because they require time and energy to correct. It’s because they are evidence of something we don’t want to face: the fact that we are flawed. Many of us try in vain to be flawless, all in an effort to stiff-arm the basic truth that we are anything but. Something about accepting the fact that we are imperfect irritates us, maybe even is an affront to our pride. We keep trying to be perfect, even though we cannot be.

  Don’t get me wrong. I’m not against the fighting spirit of “never say die” if the cause is worthy. I cheered every time Rocky Balboa got up off the mat after being knocked down. We love and admire the person who goes the distance. What worries me is when we go from getting up off the mat after a knockdown to thinking we should have never been there in the first place. That is dangerous.

  “How,” you may ask, “is it dangerous?”

  A person who believes “to err is stupid” will make a mistake and immediately start into a self-abusive song and dance. As if making the mistake itself wasn’t bad enough, he starts beating himself up for making it! He starts telling himself things like these:

  You stupid idiot! What’s wrong with you? How could you have ever done something so imbecilic! No one else on the planet has ever done anything this ignorant. You are the only person dumb enough to have pulled this off. Great work, chump! Everyone around you must think you are the biggest moron ever born. You deserve the miserable life you’re leading because you are nothing but a loser from the word go. Hang your head in shame, you loser.

  Feelings of self-condemnation, anxiety, shame, embarrassment, and depression go sky-high with this commentary going on in his mind. Imagine the damage it does to his sense of competence and value. Its devastating effect on his ability to relate to others is immeasurable.