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christian counseling today
VOL. 22 NO. 1
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DIANE LANGBERG , PH.D.
looking inward
W
e all carry a great
capacity for deception.
The Scriptures say it
is the most prevalent
and profound characteristic of the
human heart and telling us our hearts
are unknowable. We are all human; so
counselors are human hearts, working
alongside other human hearts.
All
such
hearts are exceedingly complex and
fragile. They are knowable in limited
ways and easily damaged.
Deception essentially functions
as a narcotic, for it protects us from
seeing clearly or feeling that which
is painful. A person who is skilled in
deception is one who is effectively
addicted to deceit. Deception deeply
habituates the soul to look at things
diametrically opposed to the way
God sees, for He is a God of truth.
Deception is about hiding, pretending,
ignoring, and camouflaging. We use
all manner of self-deceptions to protect
us from information that would cause
us to view ourselves in ways that we do
not like. This mechanism enables us
to turn a blind eye, commit wrongs,
and feel justified when we ought to be
facing our failures, abuses, and sins.
The maintenance of any destructive
pattern in a human life—such as a
sex addiction—requires a foundation,
an infrastructure. Its cornerstone is
deception.
There is a second phenomenon
to consider that is also relevant to a
discussion of sexual addictions. It is
self-injury. Sometimes when people
are distraught, full of self-hatred, and
confused, they take it out on their own
bodies. When someone does harm to
him/herself, we say it is self-destructive;
we know it is not healthy. It is
pathological to injure the body in which
you live… to harm the self
and
believe
it is good. That is the essence of any
addiction. We know from research that
ongoing use of pornography shapes the
brain. We know it cripples relationships.
We also know that chronic use of
pornography lowers inhibitions in a
similar fashion to alcohol. It numbs the
self to things that our God hates.
Let’s consider the biography of
deception in a life. We have said that
deception’s origin is in the human heart
and that none of us are exempt. It is
there—you and I know its presence
in our own hearts and have heard its
whisper. All of us have yielded to it.
All of us know the heart experience
of temptation and the response of
self-deception, seemingly working in
concert to convince us of its rightness
or harmlessness. When we also have a
fear of God in our hearts, then another
powerful factor is introduced into this
battle in the soul. If there is no fear of
God or
we silence that fear
, then we can
easily begin thinking what the enemy
told Eve—you will not die… it will not
hurt you. We convince ourselves we
can stop at any time… one more time
will not hurt… just one more look. If
we engage in such self-delusion long
enough, we will, over time, lose our
Addiction and the Deceived Heart