There are many reasons as to why we will lie to ourselves, which is self-deception. The enemy loves to use self-deception to keep us out of God’s will for our lives. The following are some of the ways and reasons why we deceive ourselves. When we become aware of the things that may be standing in our way we are equipped with the knowledge that a change can be or needs to be made. Self-deception is a very hard thing to be able to recongize on our own. My hopes are that this short list of ways we can deceive ourselves will help you be able to notice how you may be standing in your own way to God’s will for you.

FEAR- afraid that what God says/promises in His word will not happen. Afraid that things won’t work out the way that we want them to so we tell ourselves whatever sounds the best to avoid facing the fear. We will tell ourselves whatever will justify our lack of action so that we won’t feel bad about ourselves.

FEAR OF FAILURE- Avoiding situations that there is a potential for failure. If I am afraid of failing I will come up with a way to deceive myself so that nobody will be able to see my fear of failing. I will tell myself anything to be able to avoid possibly failing. I will come up with excuses as to why I can not even try to accomplish the task.

FEAR OF REJECTION- Person that has a problem with building boundaries with others is because they fear they won’t be accepted. They will always put others needs above their own. We deceive ourselves by saying we are being a good Christian or a good person by putting others needs before our own all the time. But we are really just afraid of not being accepted or approved of or rejected. We deceive ourselves by telling ourselves we just want to help or love others, but truth is we don’t want to be rejected. And as long as we are benefiting someone in some way they will accept and welcome us for what we can do for them. If we fear rejection we may mold ourselves to fit in with whom we are around, go against out moral judgment, or do things that we do not want or approve of doing. We may deceive ourselves by telling ourselves that we are being judgmental if we do not go along with what the other person wants or thinks.

FEAR OF CHANGE- Fear of change will cause us to deceive ourselves to stay in a toxic situation, relationship, or environment. We are afraid of the unknown, that the change won’t work out, or that things will end up worse so we lie to ourselves and tell ourselves that we are happy or content or satisfied where we are at. We will keep ourselves stuck in a unfulfilled state of being just to not have to face our fear of change.

FEAR OF JUDGMENT- We will lie to ourselves about ourselves because of fear of judgment from others. We fear that others will form a negative opinion about us so we keep the things that we have personal negative views on about ourselves to ourselves. We will not face our truth of what is really going on in our heart or our life or our experiences and the effects that they had on us. We will often fear judgment from others because we are secretly negatively judging ourselves and that is why we fear that others will do the same.

LACK OF CONFIDENCE- We lie to ourselves to compensate for our insecurities. Because we lack belief in ourselves we assume that others will do the same.

WANTING TO PLEASE OTHERS- We deceive ourselves by downplaying our own needs so that we can stay in the good grace of others. Having relationships with those that don’t value, respect, or even care about us as a person. When we don’t think much of ourselves we allow others to treat us unfairly Wow we constantly try to please them. We lie to ourselves by telling ourselves that they care about us but they don’t.

AVOID PAIN- We lie to ourselves because we want to avoid painful thoughts, feelings, or experiences after enduring hardships or trauma. We don’t want to face the fact that we were/are hurt, weak, or vulnerable so we lie to ourselves about the true impact the event had on us.

FACING TRUTH- We prefer the convenience of a easy delusion over facing a hard truth. It’s convenient to ourselves instead of facing a hard reality. Facing our ugliness, flaws, weaknesses, Our truths is not easy so we lie to ourselves or avoid it altogether by deceiving ourselves into thinking we are fine.

COPING MECHANICISM- We may use self deception as a coping mechanism. It is how we do with issues or unpleasant things. To be able to keep putting one foot in front of the other we lie to ourselves about the negative effects that situations, people, events, or life has had on us.

These are just some of the ways that we may deceive ourselves. When we lie to ourselves it is usually to try to keep from dealing with something unpleasant. We may not know how to deal with it so we make up a way to avoid it. But once we are able to recongize the fact that we are lying to ourselves we are able to do something about it. There is no telling how many times we have missed out on something that God had instore for us because of self-deception. It is a tactic that satan uses to defeat us all the time. When we can face our truths head on we are able to be and do all that we were created to be and do. Owning our truths enables us to be free and wholesome. Nobody can know it all, do it all, or be all so we have to stop thinking that we are suppose to be perfect. Every last one of us are messy and flawed in our own ways and the only standard that we should worry about living up to is God’s.