The Square Peg

To recap the truths that would revolutionize our decision making processes:

1) God knows what’s best for you better than you know what’s best for you
2) Everybody you lay eyes on is a person for whom Christ died
3) God is up to something in the world and you are invited to play a part

Ready for the fourth?

• The single greatest obstacle to living a breakaway life is that when we wake up, we don’t set out on a truth quest.

We only chase what makes us happy. When we become people who make decisions that will make us ‘happy’, we have to make up excuses to justify that decision.

If I bought a new car and told you I bought it because it’s safer than the Trailblazer, that’s crap. That’s not why I’d buy a new car. I’d be buying a new car because my ‘wanter’ kicked in and I ‘obeyed my thirst’ (no, Sprite isn’t paying me for that plug). And I’d get something with heated leather seats, an in-dash multiple CD player, GPS, MP3 capability, and a sun roof. And that’s just for starters. But buying a new car would only make me happy until I got the new payment and realized how much further in debt I am; then I wouldn’t be happy anymore. So which is it? Did buying the new car make me happy or not?

The thing is, when we make excuses to justify our actions, the people we tell don’t believe it. And we don’t believe it when they tell us their excuses, either. But we convince ourselves it’s true, and our self-deceit is our biggest hindrance to living a breakaway life.

Jeremiah 17:9 says the heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it? We already heard it once earlier in the series, and here it is again: you can’t trust your heart. If we pursue happiness rather than truth, God’s will will always seem extreme. When we chase truth, God’s will doesn’t seem so severe. In fact, when we seek truth, we’ll realize God’s will brings peace and contentment rather than the unrest that often follows carrying out our own will.

Joe wasn’t trying to change anybody’s behavior; his point was that we aren’t always honest with ourselves. He challenged us with these questions:

• Why am I doing this, really?
• If someone in my circumstances came to me for advice, what course of action would I recommend?

Since it starts here, I think I’ll go look in the mirror.