5 Destructive Lies You Tell Yourself Every Day

Just go ahead and admit it. You’re lying to
yourself today. Life gets complex,
relationships get sticky, loneliness creeps in—
and sometimes we just feel the need to bend
the truth to make it through the week. We
need our lies to keep the pain tucked away
where it can’t get to us. That deceitful heart
of ours has a way making it easy for us to be
okay with these lies ( Jeremiah 17:9 )—that is,
until they’re drawn out by God’s scalpel
( Psalm 139:23 ).
These lies don’t just cover up the pain of life,
though. They actually make it harder for us to
grow in our faith and in our connection with
others. We’ve gotten so numb to them that
we don’t necessarily even see the damage
they do.
But here’s one time when it’s definitely okay
to “name it and claim it.” If we’re to get
beyond these lies that we drag around with us,
we have to identify them and call them what
they are.
Have you seen any of these 5 lies in yourself
today?
1. I’m Okay.
We don’t like to dig around inside and examine
what’s going on. Why? Because when we start
looking, we often find areas that need some
major renovations. That gets messy, and most
of us are far too busy to go and look for
things to fix.
So, we just tie on the “I’m okay” superhero
cape and trudge onward. It’s usually only
when some sort of tragedy strikes that we
finally realize we aren’t as okay as we
thought.
But that’s not the biblical model. In the Bible,
the Psalmist continually cries out for God to
search him and test him and examine him so
that He can keep doing the necessary
renovation work (for example, Psalms 11, 17,
and 26). The attitude of Scripture is more like
this:
“Let us examine our ways and test
them, and let us return to the
LORD.” ( Lamentations 3:40 )
Honestly, admitting daily that we’re not okay
and that we need God’s help can be scary. It
means owning our weaknesses and doing the
hard work of self-examination on a regular
basis. But thankfully for us, God specializes in
weakness, especially when we aren’t sure
where to start:
“In the same way, the Spirit helps us
in our weakness. We do not know
what we ought to pray for, but the
Spirit himself intercedes for us with
groans that words cannot
express.” ( Romans 8:26 )
We’re weak. He’s strong. And that’s the best
truth there is.
2. No One Will Ever Find
Out.
If we’re ever looking for justification to do
something dumb, we usually start here: No
one will ever know. True, there might be a
thousand variations on that theme, but it
almost always comes back to anonymity.
That’s why private browsing on the Internet
and personal devices such as smartphones
and tablets can be some of the most
dangerous tools known to humanity. (They’re
not necessarily bad, but “personal” devices do
have drawbacks.)
No one will know if I watch this. No one will
know if I go here while I’m on that work trip.
No one will know if I post this anonymous and
hurtful comment. No one will ever know.
First of all, there’s no such thing as true
anonymity in our world. What we do in
“private” very often has a way of being found
out and exposed. (Just pay attention to all
those hacking breaches you see in the news.)
More importantly, though, God has a way of
making our “no one knows” sins come out—
and He doesn’t miss any:
“You have set our iniquities before
you, our secret sins in the light of your
presence.” ( Psalm 90:8 )
Day by day, we let this lie bring us low and
keep us from living the life God has planned.
You see, God knows—He always knows the
dumb things we do.
But He still loves us:
“But God demonstrates his own love
for us in this: While we were still
sinners, Christ died for us.” ( Romans
5:8 )
You can’t hide... and you don’t need to.
3. No One Will Get Hurt.
This lie really could be 2b, since these two
excuses are like twins. If it’s not enough that
no one will know, we also like to tell ourselves
that no one will get hurt. If it’s behind closed
doors, if it only involves two responsible
adults, if it only impacts me, then it’s got to
be okay.
However, what we usually mean is that no one
will get hurt that we can see right now . We
often don’t like to follow the chain of
problems beyond the moment or the
immediate circumstances. But what we don’t
always consider are the spiritual ramifications
that could pop up or the problems that might
not be so obvious.
We also don’t take into account that God
Himself is grieved and pained by our bad
choices. God felt major pain because of raging
sin before the Flood ( Genesis 6:6 ), the
rebellious grieved His Holy Spirit in Israel
( Isaiah 63:10 ), and Jesus longed to gather His
people to Him when they refused to accept
Him ( Matthew 23:37 ).
In other words, our sins always inflict grief and
pain. And they do so to the very one we
should want to please.
4. That’s Just the Way I
Am.
Often, the easiest way out of dealing with a
destructive pattern in our lives is simply to
make it an acceptable or unchangeable part of
who we are. Whether we see it as a part of
our nature or simply as something we “can’t
fix,” this lie helps us avoid feeling responsible.
We can’t stop it because it’s just too deeply
embedded.
But what we don’t like to admit is that God is
the one who made us. We were intended to
look like, act like, and be like Him ( Genesis
1:27; 1 John 3:2 ). Sure, we all trip up
somewhere on the way to that goal, but
saying something is “just the way I am”
means saying that God messed up or was
taken by surprise by our struggles. We’re
really just saying that He can’t change us.
Thankfully, we’re wrong. He specializes in
making broken things new.
Your struggles are real. Just confess that
first. They stink; they hurt; they mess us up.
Once you get that out of the way, you can
begin the often very long, very painful process
of being made like Christ. Just keep this
promise in mind:
“… he who began a good work in you
will carry it on to completion until the
day of Christ Jesus.” ( Philippians 1:6 )
Got that? He’s not going to give up halfway
through because you mess up or because
you’re just a special case. He will complete
the work.
We just have to admit that it is a problem
before we’ll ask and seek transformation.
5. I Can Do That
Tomorrow.
Tomorrow is the time for Bible study, for that
new morning prayer routine, for that meeting
with our pastor or Christian friend. Tomorrow
is when we’ll tell our spouse the truth.
Tomorrow is when we’ll get honest with God.
But—and this is the truth—many times that
“tomorrow” never comes. Even in the midst of
how miserable some of our bad life choices
make us, we just don’t like to make changes
today. We look for a more opportune time—
when it won’t be so hard.
That’s why the Psalmist and the writer of
Hebrews make sure that we get focused on
today:
“So, as the Holy Spirit says: "Today, if
you hear his voice, do not harden your
hearts…” ( Psalm 95; Hebrews 3 )
Telling yourself that you’ll make a change
tomorrow certainly makes you feel better
about today’s failures, but it rarely ever
changes us. We must remember that a lack of
commitment to change today comes with a
steep price:
“But encourage one another daily, as
long as it is called Today, so that none
of you may be hardened by sin's
deceitfulness.” ( Hebrews 3:13 )
We don’t even know if we’ll have a tomorrow,
but we do know we have a right now. And God
is faithful in that right now.
“He will keep you strong to the end, so
that you will be blameless on the day
of our Lord Jesus Christ. God, who
has called you into fellowship with his
Son Jesus Christ our Lord, is
faithful.” ( 1 Corinthians 5:8–9 )