How far will you go

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/082925.cfm

...to defend your sin? We all do it. That's why they call them guilty pleasures - because we know they are wrong and we do it anyway. St. Paul was well acquainted with this: "for what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate, I do". While this might be an awkwardly worded translation, I think we recognize what he is saying here. We recognize it, because we have lived it.

What St. Paul is doing though is looking at his actions through a lens of truth. This is healthy even though it can be painful to admit. The opposite of this is rationalization. This can be a bit of a trap for us, as often we begin to buy-in to our own story. Once we buy-in, then we have to defend it. This is where Herodius finds herself in today's Gospel. She has convinced herself, and rationalized all along that her relationship with Herod was 'fine', that she was justified walking away from Herod's brother to marry Herod.

Now that she has 'bought into' her self-deception, she has to defend her position or appear a fool. She takes this to the furthest possible point, even to the death of the one who makes known to everyone her misstep.

Now I don't suppose that many of us are putting others to death, but we might be engaging in the same type of behavior. When we attacked, or critiqued or called out for something, how do we react? Do we fire back to defend ourselves? What are we defending? Deeply held beliefs, or perhaps a misdeed or mistake on our own part? It can be difficult, but sometimes when someone strikes out at us, there is some truth to what they are upset about, or what they are saying, but because they are abrasive about it, or because we are embarrassed, we strike back.

For many years, I prided myself in my ability to cleverly strike back at those who would critique. I could create any number of plausible reasons to justify my actions and was certainly not opposed to identifying some flaws in the other person's actions to deflect some of the blame. It has taken me a while, and I am certainly not exemplary in this way, but I try to pause and recognize the truth in what someone might be saying. I really dislike doing this because I don't like seeing or admitting to my faults and failings - no one does. but it must be done, because the alternative is to lie to myself.

When we begin to lie to ourselves, we inherently know that we cannot lie to God, and unlike the people on the other side of our emails, or posts, or phone conversations, He can't be duped. We know this in our hearts and so we will distance ourselves from Him in order to preserve our lie, defend our sin, maintain our guilty pleasure.

Most people deny the existence of God because His very existence means that someone is capable of calling our bluff, seeing our self-deception, knowing our sinfulness. While this can be difficult, we have to remember this accompanying truth: He loves us anyway. No amount of self-deception will ever change that.

I encourage you to stop defending, stop pretending and just invite God to see all of it (He does anyway), and ask for His help and grace. He has been waiting for you to ask. When you do this, HE will defend you, and He has already proven how far He will go to do that.