True Perception

Over the past several weeks, on four separate occasions, people have reached out to me about circumstances that were troubling them.

Each situation was different, but the concern in every conversation was real. There was worry, uncertainty, and a desire to understand what was happening and what to do next.

By the grace of God, we were able to stay committed to His Word. We did not have all the answers, nor could we control every circumstance, but we could trust what God had said.

And in each situation, the grace of God met them where they were.

That stayed with me.

I began to think about how many other people may be facing something troubling right now.

Maybe they are worried.

Maybe they are afraid.

Maybe something has happened that they simply do not understand.

And then I thought about the person who may not have anyone to call.

The person sitting alone, trying to make sense of what is happening with only the information they have and the thoughts running through their mind.

What about them?

The purpose of this article is not to tell you that what you are facing is not real. Nor is it to minimize your pain, your concern, or the circumstances before you.

My hope is simply that, together, we can look a little more closely at how we understand the things that happen to us.

So let me begin with a question.

Have you ever stopped to consider the difference between what you see and what you understand about what you see?

We see things every day.

We see what people do. We hear what they say. We experience things that happen around us and, in many cases, we have little or no control over them.

But what we see and what we understand about what we see are not necessarily the same thing.

What we see is before us.

But the understanding of what we see takes place within us.

Most of the time, this happens so quickly that we never stop to examine it. We see something, and almost immediately, it means something to us.

Then we respond.

We become angry. We feel hurt. We become afraid or worried.

To us, the explanation seems simple:

Something happened, and it made me feel this way.

But is that exactly what happened?

Did the event itself create the anger, the hurt, or the fear?

Or did we interpret what happened, give meaning to what we saw, and then respond emotionally to that understanding?

In other words, were we responding only to what happened?

Or were we responding to what we believed had happened?

Let me give you a scenario.

Two guys are sitting around talking when one of them mentions that a mutual friend is having a cookout. They decide to go.

When they arrive, they find a place to sit in a secluded area of the cookout. While they are sitting there, they notice a man being very intimate with a woman.

One of the men says to the other, “That’s my wife!”

Now, let’s pause for a moment.

How do you think that man felt?

Hurt? Mad? Angry? Disappointed?

Probably all of them.

He decides that he is going to approach them. However, as he gets closer to the couple, he notices that although the woman has some features similar to his wife, she is not his wife.

Let’s pause again.

How does he feel now?

He is no longer hurt, angry, or mad.

Instead, he feels relieved.

Now, let’s analyze what just happened.

There was only one event: a man and a woman being intimate with one another.

The event itself never changed.

The couple did not change.

They were still in the same place, doing the same thing.

Yet the same man experienced two completely different emotional responses to the same event.

So what changed?

What he believed.

At first, he believed the woman was his wife. Based on that belief, he felt real hurt, real anger, and real disappointment. His belief even began to influence what he was preparing to do. He was ready to approach the couple.

But there was a problem.

What he believed was not true.

The moment he recognized the truth, his emotions changed. The hurt was gone. The anger was gone. Even what he was preparing to do changed.

Notice something important.

The man was not simply responding to what he saw.

He was responding to what he believed about what he saw.

His eyes saw a man and a woman together.

But his eyes did not see, “My wife is being unfaithful to me.”

That happened within him.

Somewhere between what he saw and how he felt, the information before him was interpreted.

The woman looked like his wife.

She had some of the same features.

She was being intimate with another man.

His mind took the information before him, compared it with what he already knew about his wife, and formed an understanding of what was happening.

“That’s my wife.”

But it wasn’t.

Think about that for a moment.

The man was not imagining the couple.

They were really there.

The man was really being intimate with the woman.

The woman really did resemble his wife.

Much of what he saw was true.

But what he understood it to mean was not.

And perhaps even more importantly, he did not know that his understanding was false.

To him, he was not interpreting the situation.

He believed he was simply seeing it for what it was.

He did not say, “I have formed a belief that this woman may be my wife.”

He said:

“That’s my wife!”

There was certainty in his statement.

Yet he was wrong.

The danger was not simply that he was wrong.

The danger was that he was wrong and believed he was right.

This is what makes deception so difficult to recognize.

If we knew something was false, we would not believe it.

The very nature of deception is that what is false appears to us as though it is true.

And once we accept it as true, it can begin to affect us just as though it were true.

The man’s wife had not betrayed him.

Yet he felt betrayed.

She had not been unfaithful.

Yet he felt the pain of unfaithfulness.

The man with the woman had done nothing to him.

Yet he was preparing to confront him.

Do you see what happened?

The event was outside of him, but the meaning he gave to the event was formed within him.

And once he believed that understanding to be true, it began to govern him.

His emotions followed it.

His thoughts followed it.

His intended actions followed it.

Had truth not interrupted him, the consequences may have followed it as well.

Now consider something else.

Where was the man’s hurt?

Inside of him.

Where was his anger?

Inside of him.

Where was his disappointment?

Inside of him.

But where was he going to fix the problem?

Outside of himself.

He was going to approach the couple because he believed they were the source of what he was feeling.

From his perspective, that made perfect sense.

But the woman was not his wife, and the man had not betrayed him. What he saw was outside of him, but the belief governing his response had been formed within him.

Yet because he believed the problem was outside of him, his solution was directed outside of him.

Imagine what could have happened.

He could have confronted the man. He could have accused his wife. He could have damaged his marriage or hurt innocent people.

Real consequences could have come from a belief that was never true.

And even more troubling, he may have believed his actions were justified.

After all, according to his understanding, he was responding to what had happened.

But he wasn’t.

He was responding to what he believed had happened.

There is a difference.

And that difference may be far more important than we realize.

How many times have we tried to change something outside of us because we believed it was the source of what was happening within us?

We change people, relationships, jobs, and environments. We seek more money or recognition. We try to control the things around us.

Sometimes change is necessary. There are situations we should leave, wrongs that should be addressed, and circumstances that genuinely need to change.

But what happens when we try to fix something outside of us while never examining what may be governing us within?

What if the anger follows us?

What if the fear follows us?

What if the insecurity follows us?

What if the same hurt appears in a new relationship, a new job, a new church, or a new environment?

At what point do we stop looking only at what is around us and begin to ask what is happening within us?

The man at the cookout did not know he was deceived.

That is the problem.

From where he stood, he could see the woman.

From where he stood, she looked like his wife.

From where he stood, his anger made sense.

From where he stood, approaching the couple seemed reasonable.

From where he stood, he believed he was right.

But he wasn’t.

He simply did not yet possess enough truth to know it.

And perhaps that is a question worth asking ourselves:

How much of what governs our lives is based upon what we know—and how much is based upon what we think we know?

We see through limited eyes.

We possess limited information.

We carry years of experiences, memories, fears, disappointments, and things we have been taught.

All of it exists within us.

Then something happens outside of us.

We see it.

We hear it.

We experience it.

And almost immediately, it means something to us.

But where did that meaning come from?

What within us interpreted what we saw?

What within us told us what it meant?

And how do we know that understanding is true?

The man at the cookout had no reason to question his anger until he got closer.

He had no reason to question his hurt until he saw more clearly.

He had no reason to question what he believed until truth exposed the error in his understanding.

Then, in a moment, everything changed.

Not because the event changed.

Not because the people changed.

But because what he believed was brought into agreement with what was true.

So perhaps the question is not only:

What happened to me?

Perhaps we must also ask:

What have I come to believe about what happened to me?

And then comes an even more difficult question:

Is what I believe true?

Perhaps there is another question we should consider.

How much of what is troubling me right now is actually happening right now?

Think carefully about that question.

If I am worried, I am worried now.

If I am afraid, I feel the fear now.

If I am hurting, the hurt is real now.

But what am I responding to?

Let’s return to the man at the cookout.

The moment he recognized that the woman was not his wife, his emotions changed.

The event did not change.

The couple did not change.

But the belief that had produced his hurt and anger was corrected by truth.

Now imagine that he never walked closer.

Imagine that nothing ever corrected what he believed.

He leaves the cookout still convinced that the woman was his wife.

The cookout eventually ends.

The people go home.

The event is over.

But what happens to the belief?

It may remain.

The event may end while the belief remains.

And that belief may become part of the story we remember.

Years later, the man may think back to that day and say:

“I remember when I saw my wife with another man.”

But that is not what happened.

He saw a woman who looked like his wife with another man.

Yet if the false belief was never corrected, the memory may not feel false to him.

He is not remembering a lie that he knowingly created.

He is remembering an event through the understanding he formed when it happened.

And within that memory may remain the understanding he formed while the event was taking place.

Now consider what happens when something occurs in the present.

His wife is late coming home.

That is all he knows.

She is late.

But suddenly, a memory returns.

“I remember when I saw her with that man.”

The past has not returned.

The cookout is not happening again.

He is remembering it now.

And within the memory that returned to his mind was the false belief he had formed years earlier.

Now the present begins to be interpreted through the memory.

His wife is late.

That is present information.

But now the present is being interpreted through what he believes happened in the past.

“She’s probably with him.”

Then his mind moves again.

“She’s going to leave me.”

“My marriage is over.”

“What am I going to tell the children?”

“I may lose my home.”

Notice what just happened.

The man began with one piece of present information:

His wife is late.

But within moments, he is emotionally experiencing a marriage that has ended, a family that has been disrupted, and a home that may be lost.

What has actually happened?

His wife is late.

The rest has not happened.

Yet the fear may be real.

The worry may be real.

The pain may be real.

How?

Because although the future has not happened, the man is imagining it now.

The past is no longer happening.

The future has not yet happened.

Yet the emotional weight of what he remembers, what he presently sees, and what he imagines may seem to press upon him at once.

But they are not all happening at once.

Perhaps a simple example can help us understand this.

A computer can switch between processes so quickly that, to us, it may appear as though several things are happening at the same time.

The mind can appear to do something similar.

It can move from memory, to what is happening now, to what might happen next with such speed that we may experience the emotional weight of all three as though they are one present reality.

But look more closely.

We are remembering the past now.

We are interpreting the present now.

We are imagining the future now.

The past itself is not happening again.

The future has not yet arrived.

But the understanding formed from what we remember can influence how we interpret what is happening now.

And what we remember can influence how we understand what is happening now. What we understand can then influence what we expect to happen next.

Past.

Present.

Future.

All moving through the mind so quickly that they may feel like one continuous experience.

And all the while, the man may believe he is simply responding to his life.

But is he?

Or is he responding to a story being assembled within him from memory, present information, and imagination?

This is where worry can become especially powerful.

Something happens.

We do not have all the information.

So the mind begins to fill in what is missing.

It reaches backward into memory.

It interprets what is happening now.

Then it reaches forward into a future that has not yet happened.

And before we realize it, we are carrying the emotional weight of a story that feels complete even though much of the information is still missing.

This does not mean our worry is fake.

The man’s worry is real.

His fear is real.

The weight he feels is real.

But a real emotion does not prove that everything supporting that emotion is true.

So perhaps when something is troubling us, we should ask:

What do I actually know?

What am I remembering?

What am I assuming?

What am I imagining?

And how much of the story troubling me has actually happened?

Because it is possible to carry the emotional weight of a complete catastrophe while possessing only fragments of incomplete information.

If our understanding can be wrong, and we may not even recognize when it is wrong, then an important question remains:

What can we safely trust to guide us?

Consider the man at the cookout.

If no one corrected him, what would he have relied upon?

His own understanding.

The same understanding that told him the woman was his wife.

The same understanding that told him his anger was justified.

The same understanding now telling him that his wife was probably with the same man.

His understanding kept agreeing with itself.

Could he simply think harder?

Perhaps.

But he would be asking the very understanding that had deceived him to determine whether he had been deceived.

How does a person find truth when his own understanding is telling him that he already has it?

Perhaps this is why the Scripture says:

“Trust in the LORD with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding.” — Proverbs 3:5

Notice the word lean.

When we lean on something, we place our weight upon it.

We trust it to support us.

The man at the cookout had placed the full weight of his emotions upon his understanding of what he saw.

And his understanding was wrong.

Not because he was foolish.

Not because he was dishonest.

But because he was limited.

He could only see from where he stood.

He could only interpret the information he possessed.

He could only compare what he saw with what he already believed and remembered.

And that is true of us as well.

Our eyes can see something real and still misunderstand what it means.

Within our memories may remain an understanding that was never true.

What we already believe can influence how we interpret what is happening today.

And from that incomplete understanding, we can imagine a tomorrow that has not happened.

Yet we can feel certain through all of it.

The man did not know whether the woman was his wife.

God knew.

The man did not know why his wife was late.

God knew.

The man could only imagine what tomorrow might bring.

God’s knowledge was not limited by what the man could see.

The limitation was never in the truth.

The limitation was in the man’s ability to perceive it.

So when Scripture tells us not to lean on our own understanding, perhaps it is not asking us to stop thinking.

Perhaps it is warning us not to place the full weight of our hearts upon something so limited.

Because when we do, we may begin carrying burdens created not only by what has happened, but by what we have concluded, remembered, assumed, and imagined.

The weight of hurt.

The weight of anger.

The weight of fear.

The weight of a marriage they believe is ending.

The weight of a future that has not even happened.

And we may carry all of it now.

But what if the understanding supporting that weight is incomplete?

What if we do not know everything we think we know?

What if the story is not as complete as it feels?

This does not mean we ignore what is happening.

It does not mean we refuse to think.

It does not mean we pretend that painful circumstances are not real.

It means we recognize something very simple:

We do not possess enough information to make our understanding the final authority concerning what is true.

The man at the cookout needed truth beyond what he could see from where he stood.

Perhaps we do too.

So before we allow our understanding to carry the full weight of our hearts, perhaps we should ask:

What am I leaning on?

What I see?

What I remember?

What I fear?

What I imagine?

Or what God has said?

The circumstance may not change immediately.

The medical report may still say what it says.

The person may still not have called.

The meeting may still be scheduled.

The uncertainty may still be there.

But perhaps something within us can change before anything around us changes.

Perhaps we can stop asking our limited understanding to carry a weight it was never designed to bear.

And perhaps we can begin to do what the Scripture said from the beginning:

“Trust in the LORD with all thine heart.”

But how?

How do we begin to recognize when our understanding may be wrong?

How do we discover a false belief when, by its very nature, we believe it is true?

Perhaps the man at the cookout can help us again.

When he first saw the woman, he was certain.

“That’s my wife.”

His emotions agreed with him.

His anger agreed with him.

Even what he was preparing to do agreed with him.

From where he stood, everything seemed to confirm what he believed.

Then he moved closer.

And as he moved closer, he saw something he could not see from where he had been standing.

The woman was not his wife.

The truth did not change.

The man’s understanding changed.

The woman had never been his wife.

The man simply could not see that clearly from where he stood.

But notice what happened when truth exposed the error in his understanding.

His emotions changed immediately.

The anger disappeared.

The hurt disappeared.

The disappointment disappeared.

Even what he was preparing to do changed.

Why?

Because although the truth was true, he did not know it.

The truth was already true before the man recognized it.

But as long as he believed the woman was his wife, he continued to respond to that false belief as though it were true.

The moment truth corrected his understanding, the hurt, anger, and disappointment lost the belief that had been supporting them.

The emotions were real.

But they were rooted in something that was not true.

And when truth corrected what he believed, his emotional response changed with it.

Think about that.

The man did not have to spend years trying to stop being angry about what he saw.

He did not have to learn how to manage the hurt.

He did not have to convince himself not to be disappointed.

The belief supporting that particular hurt was gone.

And when the belief was corrected, the emotional response changed immediately.

Perhaps this helps us understand something Jesus said:

“If ye continue in my word, then are ye my disciples indeed; And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.” — John 8:31–32

Notice the order.

“If ye continue in my word…”

“Ye shall know the truth…”

“The truth shall make you free.”

The man at the cookout could not free himself from the false belief by continuing to examine the situation from the same place.

He could have continued thinking.

He could have tried to explain his anger.

He could have replayed what he saw again and again in his mind.

But as long as he continued interpreting everything through the same false belief, where would it lead him?

Back to the same conclusion.

“That’s my wife.”

His understanding agreed with itself.

Jesus did not direct us deeper into our own understanding to find freedom.

He directed us to continue in His Word.

Why?

Because truth must come from beyond the false belief if the false belief is ever going to be exposed.

This is important.

If something within us is false, we may not recognize it simply by looking deeper within ourselves.

We may only find more thoughts, more memories, and more emotions that agree with what we already believe.

But the Word of God does not depend upon our understanding to be true.

It is true whether we recognize it or not.

Just as the woman at the cookout was not the man’s wife before he recognized it, God’s truth is true before we understand it.

The question is whether we will continue in His Word long enough for His truth to expose what we could not see from where we stood.

What if we have misunderstood something we experienced?

What if a belief formed years ago still remains within us?

What if that belief is influencing how we interpret what is happening today?

What if our fear of tomorrow is being built upon an understanding that is incomplete?

How would we know?

Perhaps not by asking our understanding to examine itself.

Perhaps we begin by bringing our understanding before something greater than itself.

The Word of God.

We bring what we believe before what God has said.

We allow His Word to examine the conclusions we have formed, the meanings we have given to our experiences, and the beliefs we have carried within us.

This does not mean we deny what we see.

The man did see a woman.

It does not mean we pretend we do not feel.

The man was genuinely hurt.

It does not mean we ignore real circumstances.

His wife may still be late.

It means we stop treating our limited understanding of those things as the final authority concerning what is true.

We continue in His Word.

And as His truth exposes what we could not see, our understanding can be brought into agreement with what was true all along.

The man at the cookout had to get closer before he saw clearly.

Perhaps we do too.

Perhaps we need to remain in God’s Word long enough for His truth to expose what our own understanding could not see.

But there is something else we should consider.

The man at the cookout accepted the truth immediately.

Why wouldn’t he?

The truth brought relief.

“That is not my wife.”

He wanted that to be true.

But what happens when the truth we discover is not the truth we wanted to find?

What happens when God’s Word does not merely correct something that is hurting us, but exposes something within us?

Do we still want the truth?

Consider the man at the cookout.

The truth corrected his understanding of the woman.

“That is not my wife.”

He gladly accepted it.

But what if truth exposed something within him?

He had been prepared to confront a man who had done nothing to him.

He had already judged his wife unfaithful.

He had allowed an understanding formed from incomplete information to govern his emotions and intended actions.

Would he receive that truth just as quickly?

Or would he begin to explain?

“She looked just like my wife.”

“Anyone would have thought the same thing.”

“You don’t understand what it looked like from where I was sitting.”

Do you see what has changed?

When truth corrected what was hurting him, he welcomed it.

But when truth exposed something within him, he may have felt the need to defend himself.

The first truth brought relief.

The second required humility.

Perhaps this is why continuing in God’s Word is so important.

The Word does not merely tell us what is true about the things around us.

It also exposes what is happening within us.

The Scripture says:

“For the word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any twoedged sword… and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.” — Hebrews 4:12

Think about that.

A discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.

We have spent much of this article examining what can happen within a person between what he sees and how he responds.

He sees.

He interprets.

He forms an understanding.

He believes.

His emotions follow.

His thoughts follow.

His intended actions follow.

And through it all, he may believe he is simply responding to what happened.

But God’s Word can expose what our own understanding could not see.

It can reveal the belief beneath the anger.

What may be driving our need to control.

What may be hidden within our need to be right.

The resentment we have carried without questioning.

The judgment we formed before we knew the truth.

And when the Word exposes these things, we are faced with a choice.

Will we explain?

Will we defend?

Will we gather every memory that supports what we already believe?

Will we return to our own understanding until it agrees with itself again?

Or will we allow the Word of God to tell us the truth—even about us?

This is where continuing in His Word becomes more than reading.

We must be willing to be corrected by what we read.

The man at the cookout gladly surrendered his false belief when the truth brought relief.

But are we willing to surrender a belief when truth requires humility?

A judgment we have held for years.

A resentment we believe is justified.

A fear we have called wisdom.

Pride we have called confidence.

Control we have called responsibility.

Perhaps even the story we have told ourselves about what happened to us.

This does not mean the event was not real.

It does not mean the pain was not real.

It does not mean someone did not genuinely wrong us.

It means we are willing to let God tell us what is true about what happened—and what may have formed within us because of it.

We do not come to God’s Word merely asking it to agree with us.

We come willing to agree with God.

Perhaps that is the real test.

Do I want the truth only when it frees me from what hurts?

Or do I want the truth enough to let it expose and correct what has formed within me?

Now, let us return to the reason we began this conversation.

Something may be troubling you right now.

Perhaps nothing around you has changed since you began reading.

The medical report may still say what it said.

The meeting may still be scheduled.

The person may still not have called.

The circumstance may still be standing in front of you.

But before you carry it any further, perhaps there is one question worth asking.

How much of what I am carrying do I actually know to be true?

What do I know?

What have I assumed?

What am I remembering?

What am I imagining?

And what have I come to believe because of it?

You do not have to pretend that the circumstance is not real.

You do not have to deny the fear you feel.

But you also do not have to make your limited understanding the final authority concerning what is true.

Bring it before God.

Bring the circumstance.

Bring the memory.

Bring the fear.

Bring the conclusion you have already formed.

And then remain in His Word.

Not merely until you find a verse that agrees with you.

Remain long enough for His truth to show you what you could not see.

Perhaps the circumstance will change.

Perhaps it will not change as quickly as you hoped.

But before you allow fragments of incomplete information to tell you what your life means, what tomorrow holds, or who God is in the middle of it, remember where He told you to place the weight.

“Trust in the LORD with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding.”

You may not know everything.

But God does.

And perhaps, for this moment, that is enough to know where to lean.