There is nothing concealed that will not be disclosed, or hidden that will not be made known
Luke 12:2
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From time to time there are words spoken, or quotes that I find are akin to one tasting of the fruit of the knowledge of good and evil. One such experience occurred recently. Since the beginning of this month, I’ve been reading a booked called A Different Drummer by William Melvin Kelley, and this quote on page 69 arrested me:
“I think he meant that he had been robbed of something but had never known it because he never even knew he owned what had been taken from him.”
I read this sentence 3 or 4 more times, and when I stepped away from it, one word came to mind: deception. This is the power of deception; it steals from you and keeps you ignorant to having been robbed.
I want to say that there are levels of deception, but perhaps it’s a deception to think like that. Regardless of if you’re deceived a little or a lot, the end result is still the same: something has been removed from your possession, through you giving it up, or through you being robbed.
Is this why God says we are a people in deep darkness and wants us to come out into the light? The man in the quote had never known that he had been robbed. Is that what darkness does, to utterly blind you that it’s unfathomable that what you know, and what you see is an illusion? That you could be robbed of something and not even know? That you could own something and not know, and not even know that that thing has been taken from you? Is there a darkness that is that seamless and bottomless that only the one who separated light from darkness can expose it?
It's jarring, isn’t it? It’s unfathomable, no? Is it possible for someone to withhold the truth, that you can be utterly oblivious that you have been robbed, and you had no idea that you were even in possession of what has been stolen? Would a slave master withhold knowledge of his slave’s freedom for his own benefit?
When I think about household witchcraft, it makes the actions of those who practice it especially egregious. It’s an odious offense to me. These people steal from you, and you are none the wiser. They have audacity to hide in front of you; you cannot imagine that those you eat with, confide in, support, and respect, would practice such deception. You assume they have your best interests at heart, but they’re only concerned with promoting their own end. May God shine a light on those who are keeping us in deception and that which they are hiding; this practice is utterly wicked.
I’ve been thinking that as a child of God, from time to time, pause and ask: what is it that belongs to me that I have not taken possession of? Who is it that is lying and deceiving me from seeing the truth? Who is manipulating me in my thoughts and emotions, or manipulating the people around me, to keep me from possessing my God-given possessions? What is the darkness from which I need saving? But I also think that how many of us are put into a position to sincerely ask deep questions when you don’t even know anything?
Do you see how deception renders one powerless?
Listen, if I’m a slave master, does it benefit me to let my slaves know that they have been granted freedom, that their lives are their own to command? A free person can choose to stay and serve, or to leave. Deception is not interested in your choice; it’s interested in maintaining its power and control, stealing from you and ultimately destroying you.
However, the truth would make you change. Your current dynamic would no longer be sustainable. And that’s the power of the word of God; it precipitates change because lies can’t dwell with the truth. How you relate to who manipulated and deceived you or what deceived you has to change.
Certainly, if change were easy, would we backslide, compromise, or not give up on it? Yet it compels us to transform, to commit to the Truth, pursuing it, clinging to it, sacrificing for it, irrespective of the inconvenience. Deception makes the journey of this pursuit cumbersome. Its possessiveness is not to be taken lightly.
Unquestionably, deception is not just a veil over your eyes. It doesn’t solely misinform or withhold the truth. It creates roots, patterns of thought, a dependency on the lie, that if you are not bold once the truth emerges, you’ll go through the motions and return to the comfort of familiarity. You won’t be transformed by the truth; you’ll adjust to it. You won’t be convicted by the truth; you’ll make excuses for the duplicity and find ways to co-exist with it. At this point, deception has completed its perfect work in handing the reigns of destruction into your hands. You’ll walk about believing you’re in control, that you are in possession of yourself, meanwhile you are wretched, miserable, poor, blind and naked.
......he had been robbed of something but had never known it because he never even knew he owned what had been taken from him.”
Deception. God does send alarms, some of which blare wildly in your face, but deception has utterly obscured your eyes that even if you see it, you can’t perceive it; you hear the deception but cannot understand it. To some extent, it has become part of who you are, that to reject it is to reject yourself; it has defined the parameters of rationality that to consider its existence is to reject common sense. And who among us wise, knowledgeable, educated people wants to be labelled as obtuse, and out of touch with reality?
We need the ability to discern its works, its presence in whomever it has made its host, and pray that God helps us. None of us are exempt from its influence; it’s a spirit that has the whole world under its spell. We don’t want to spend years never having known what has always been right in front of us.
