It is only in humility that we recognize the potential to deceive ourselves, only in humility that we can objectively examine the signposts that lead us to our hearts, and only in humility that we are willing to seek out and listen to the council of others. And in all that, when we come to the point that we realize our motives are twisted up and our hearts have led us astray, we remember again the gospel which reminds us that Jesus looks upon us and loves us, self-deceptive though we are.

Just follow your heart.

It’s the stuff that Disney movies are made of. It’s about actualizing yourself and your potential; it’s about living your dreams; it’s about living happily ever after. It’s also a terrible piece of advice. That’s because I can’t trust my own heart. And neither can you.

If it’s happened once, it’s happened a thousand times to me. I do something, something (dare I say) good for someone else, and then in retrospect find that I didn’t really do that thing for them, but for myself. It was so that others would see me doing it. It was to garner praise from the person I was helping. It was to impressively display my aptitude or compassion for another. It happens all the time. And every time it happens, I’m reminded of that same fact which is in equal parts true and disturbing:

I cannot trust my own heart.

I, like you probably are, am a master at self-deception. I can trick myself into thinking the best of myself in virtually any situation. The prophet told us the truth, hard though it is might be to accept:

“The heart is more deceitful than anything else, and incurable–who can understand it?” (Jeremiah 17:6).

If that’s true – that we can very easily talk ourselves into anything – how can we battle this tendency toward self-deception? I’d suggest three ways:

1. Recognize the potential.

The first step is to actually recognize the potential for self-deception inside all of us. This is painful because it means you freely admit that you might be wrong about a given action or thought process. You acknowledge that you might be tainted by ambition or emotion or greed or pride or whatever, and because you are, you might have talked yourself into a stance or course of action that is not nearly as right as you think it is.

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