SELF-KNOWLEDGE AND ITS BENEFITS

Self-knowledge is a rare commodity. We tend to be governed by such deep and powerful psychological drives that reason, even among the most educated, is often taken captive to serve these drives.  To illustrate the point, let me cite an extreme example - the attorney and serial killer, Ted Bundy, had confessed to over 30 gruesome murders. In an interview, he explained his rationale before his execution:

·       “Then I learned that all moral judgments are ‘value judgments,’ that all value judgments are subjective [it just depends on how you think about them], and that none can be proved to be either ‘right’ or ‘wrong’…I discovered that to become truly free, truly unfettered, I had to become truly uninhibited. And I quickly discovered that the greatest obstacle to my freedom, the greatest block and limitation to it, consists in the insupportable “value judgment that I was bound to respect the rights of others. I asked myself, who were these ‘others?’ Other human beings with human rights? Why is it more wrong to kill a human animal than any other animal, a pig or a sheep or a steer? Is your life more to you than a hog’s life to a hog? Why should I be willing to sacrifice my pleasure more for the one than for the other? Surely, you would not, in this age of scientific enlightenment, declare that God or nature has marked some pleasures as ‘moral’ or ‘good’ and others as ‘immoral’ or ‘bad’? In any case, let me assure you, my dear young lady, that there is absolutely no comparison between the pleasure I might take in eating ham and the pleasure I anticipate in raping and murdering you. That is the honest conclusion to which my education has led me – after the most conscientious examination of my spontaneous and uninhibited self.” (“Christian Research Journal,” Vol 33, No 2, 2010, 32)

Bundy’s explanation might sound reasonable, but reason and self-knowledge had been taken captive to serve his lusts to such an extent that he was no longer in touch with our common human nature.

To be in touch with our human nature and to be knowledgeable about it brings long-range benefits. For one thing, we manage best what we know best. If we understand ourselves, we can better manage ourselves for maximum returns.

It should be obvious that if we have accurate data about our car, we can best take care of it. When we know where to add the water, the windshield wiper fluid, the oil, and the lubricant, we can better maintain it than when we do not know these things.

Driving also depends upon accurate data. If we fail to accurately see the location of pedestrians and other vehicles, we will eventually crash. Similarly, a captain of a ship needs to have accurate information about his ship – what weather it can sustain and where it can successfully navigate.

We too need accurate data about ourselves – our likes and dislikes, our strengths and weaknesses. I don’t like crowds and loud parties, and so I avoid them when possible. In certain environments, we will thrive. In others, we wilt.

All of this might seem simple enough, but it isn’t. Wisdom and self-knowledge are elusive commodities. Why? We’d rather feel good about ourselves than to think accurately about ourselves. It is painful to see ourselves as we really are. We prefer to think that everyone likes and respects us rather than to know the truth.

Rose-colored glasses are more desirable than a pair that enables us to see accurately. However, the rose-colored ones come at great cost to self-management. Believing what is inaccurate always costs. I had been a supervisor, but I was not able to correctly assess what others thought about me and my supervisory impact. A colleague had maliciously told me, “You don’t know who your friends are.” I later found out that he was right, and I had to pay a price for my mistaken ideas.

The writer Aldous Huxley (1894-1963) identified this commonly observed truth:

·       If most of us remain ignorant of ourselves, it is because self-knowledge is painful and we prefer the pleasures of illusion. (The Perennial Philosophy)

The Roman philosopher Seneca (4 BC-65) likewise succinctly observed that, “Other men's sins are before our eyes; our own are behind our backs.”

When it comes to self-knowledge, it tends to play a back-seat to our overwhelming need to live in denial. Jesus explained:

·       “And this is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil. For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his works should be exposed.” (John 3:19-20)

According to Jesus, our denials will eventually punish us and condemn us into a place of darkness, the very abode we have chosen for ourselves.

This principle especially reigns when it comes to our moral nature. To live in accord with our nature requires us to do good to others. When, instead, we do evil, our conscience reacts and sets off an internal struggle. While we try to tell ourselves that we are justified, the other part informs us that we have done evil through feelings of guilt and shame. Sadly:

·       There are those who curse their fathers and do not bless their mothers. There are those who are clean in their own eyes but are not washed of their filth. (Proverbs 30:11-12)

Remaining a filth-pot exacts a price, but we cannot even perceive our filth, like the fish who has little awareness of what it is like to live in water, as opposed to on land.

How do we remove our filth-stained glasses? Only with the great pain of having to see the light - what we had purposely intended not to see! We have hid from these things because they are painful, disorienting, destabilizing, and personally threatening. We have also come to rely on self-deception, an addictive drug. We have even been encouraged to live on a diet of self-affirmations. Their accuracy was never the prime concern. Instead, we embraced self-deception because it helped us to get out of bed in the morning. They administered an infusion of hope and a belief in ourselves.

However, to maintain the same level of hope and self-belief, we had to imbibe ever more grandiose self-affirmations. Eventually, they become an addiction more life-controlling than any street drug.

To go cold-turkey is to invite despair and depression. Often, long periods of severe depression weaken our defenses, and it becomes increasingly difficult to believe the lies that we had been telling ourselves. Ironically, it has been found that the depressed often have a more accurate self-assessment than do the “normal.” In “Positive Illusions,” psychologist Shelley Taylor summed up the evidence:

·       Normal people exaggerate how competent and well liked they are. Depressed people do not. Normal people remember their past behavior with a rosy glow. Depressed people are more even-handed…On virtually every point on which normal people show enhanced self-regard, illusions of control, and unrealistic visions of the future, depressed people fail to show the same biases.” (214)

However, the findings also reveal that when we surface from our depression, we return to our favorite addiction – self-deception. Taylor concluded:

·       When depressed people are no longer depressed, they show the same self-enhancing biases and illusions as non-depressed people. (p.223)

Often, therapy will substitute one addiction for a hopefully to a seemingly less toxic addiction. However, for the addiction to self-glorification and narcissistic thinking, there is no therapeutic substitute. However, my Savior Jesus applied the perfect antidote to my addiction. I gradually became convinced that He forgave, loved, and adored me. Because of His acceptance of me, I could begin to face and to accept myself.

Whatever our burdens, Jesus has promised:

·       Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.” (Matthew 11:28-30)

Jesus is a surgeon. His light penetrates and exposes all of the painful areas that require exposure. He forces us to face what we had been unwilling to face. This process is necessary to remove our filth-coated lens so that we can gain wisdom and self-knowledge. We can only see when our lens has been washed clean, and we are that lens. Therefore, we will never understand life until we can face and understand ourselves. However, Scripture understands how difficult this process can be:

·       “But who can endure the day of his coming, and who can stand when he appears? For he is like a refiner’s fire and like fullers’ soap. He will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver, and he will purify the sons of Levi and refine them like gold and silver, and they will bring offerings in righteousness to the LORD. Then the offering of Judah and Jerusalem will be pleasing to the LORD...” (Malachi 3:2-4)

How can we endure this? By knowing that He is holding our hand!