Have you ever cleaned your house before guests arrive and thrown junk in the back of a closet or stuffed clutter into a drawer? Your house appeared clean and organized as long as your guests didn’t look in those areas.
We do the same thing with our motivations and behaviors. We tidy them up. We try to hide our imperfections and maintain a good image. The problem is, while I’m busy making excuses to make myself look better, the people closest to me are not deceived. They know the truth. I’m usually only deceiving myself.
Whether you make excuses, minimize your bad behaviors, shift the blame, overcompensate for your errors or play the victim, be willing to recognize the many ways you conceal your flaws.
Making excuses
More than once, when late for an appointment, I’ve tried to make myself look better by saying, “I hit every red light on my way here.” It’s embarrassing to admit how many different reasons I’ve given over the years for not arriving on time. My excuse sounded better than admitting I had left home too late.
Minimizing bad behaviors
This is one approach you might hear from a teenager. “Oh Mom! You’re sooo out of touch with reality. All my friends are doing it.”
One person in a leadership class I attended said, “My weaknesses aren’t so bad, otherwise I’d be motivated to address them.” The problem with that logic is that when the weakness does become glaring, this person will probably be facing a crisis or an extremely embarrassing situation.
Shifting the blame
Another way we see ourselves in a more favorable light is to shift the blame onto someone else. We might say or think something like this: “It wasn’t my fault I got so angry. He shouldn’t have said those mean things. What was I supposed to do? Sit there and take it?”
Even young children naturally do this when an adult breaks up a fight. Pointing to his or her playmate we often hear, “I didn’t do anything. He started it.”
Overcompensating
In an effort to hide our flaws, we exhaust ourselves trying to earn the approval of God or others by doing good deeds. Maybe we give generously of our time or money. But when our motivation is not out of love or a direction from God, no matter how kind, generous, or compassionate we look, pride is what is hiding underneath our shiny veneer.
Playing the victim
When we play the victim, we heap more abuse and insults on ourselves in an effort to cause others to feel pity for us. One tip-off that you are playing the victim is if you notice yourself speaking in unqualified, broad generalities. You might say something like this: “Well, it’s always my fault. I’m always the one that causes all the problems around here. I never do anything right.”
In some of his final thoughts to Timothy, the Apostle Paul writes, “Pay close attention to your life and your teaching…” (1 Timothy 4:16 ISV).
Are you willing to pay close attention to your life? Are you willing to take the time to notice whether you have a pattern of making excuses, minimizing your poor behaviors, shifting the blame, overcompensating for your mistakes or playing the victim? While there are many ways we are deceived, I find self deception is the worst kind of deception there is.
