“If you can’t be honest with yourself, you’re the worst kind of liar…”

I remember being 17 and sitting on the bed with my bed friend who was five years older than me. All my friends were always older than me.

We were going through very different phases in our lives (I only fully understand this now) but she still had so much patience with me – and I could speak freely about the things that mattered most to me. Things like personal identity, boys, my parents, school, and God. 

It is a popular opinion that one’s best friend shouldn’t be one’s main soundboard because they’re only going to tell you the things that you want to hear, but she wasn’t that kind of friend. She let me rant endlessly and would applaud any humility (recognition of wrong) on my part. On the other hand, when I was wrong, showed no remorse, and wanted to wallow in self-pity, she would tell me why I was wrong and nudge me in the right direction – gently.

I valued her opinion and thereafter, being self-aware, and constantly searching myself after conflict, disagreement, or even offence became a very important thing for me. It’s years later; I’m not 17 anymore, and my friend has long since moved away, gotten married and had children – but still, this lesson is something that I am working to build into my psyche. 

In his The Art Of War For Managers: 50 Strategic Rules Gerald A. Michaelson cites a commentary written by David Halberstam on the auto industry called The Reckoning. Halberstam wrote that Ford had the problem of having men whose strength was in hearing the truth in their own voices. Therefore, “there were, it was believed, few honest answers during (then-President of Ford) McNamara’s years because there were few honest questions.”

Gerald A. Michaelson goes on to say that he has observed that when managers (or, in this case, normal people like you and me) don’t ask the right questions the answers don’t make a difference. This creates something that Michaelson calls, “high-level dumb” situations! 

Two high level dumb questions to avoid:

• Extreme self-reliance and absence of trust in God:

“Place your trust in the Eternal; rely on Him completely; never depend on your own ideas and inventions. Give Him credit for everything that you accomplish, and he will smooth out and straighten the road that lies ahead. And don’t think that you can decide on your own, what is right and wrong. Respect the Eternal; turn and run from evil. If you depend on Him, your body and mind will be free from the stain of a sinful life, and you will experience healing and health and be strengthened at the core!”– Proverbs 3:5-8 

In other versions of the Bible they use the word “understanding” (don’t lean on your own understanding) – an inclination to support or be loyal to or to agree with an opinion, the capacity for rational thought or inference or discrimination. To me, this means that all inclination to support or agree with our own “soul-ish” opinions and rational thought should be turned and handed over to God! This is the only way to find real fulfilment! Romans 1:28 says that when people don’t “have a mind to follow God” He turns them over to their own depraved desires/minds, and we really, really, don’t want that.

• Unreasonable, extreme self-doubt and anxiety:

Many of us find ourselves on the other side of the spectrum – harbouring extreme self-doubt, so much so that we are unable to live in peace and suffer from extreme anxiety because we glorify our situations more than God. This is “high level dumb” because so many times people that find themselves here will refuse to listen to any voice of reason and truth about who they really are.

“…and I know God has made everything beautiful in its time. God has placed in our minds a sense of eternity… we cannot understand the doings of God.” – Ecclesiastes 3:11

“’Be still, be calm, see, and understand that I am the true God, I am honored among all the nations. I am honored over all the earth.’ You know the Eternal, the commander of the heavenly armies, surrounds us and protects us; the True God of Jacob is our shelter, close to his heart.” – Psalms 46:10-11 

Both of the aforementioned points can lead us to live many years in denial, hurting us and causing many harmful spiraling “high-level dumb” situations. 

Why don’t you promise to be honest with yourself today with God’s help?

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