Dealing with liars can be challenging. In many cases, they do not believe what they are telling you are ‘lies’. Since there are elements of truth embedded in what they tell you, they consider it a ‘white lie’ or ‘not the whole truth’. If you wonder how can they lie to me like that, it is because they do not view what they are telling you as a 100% lie. In their thinking, a lie is when it is 100% lie told with the intention of hurting you. When they are giving you at least part of the truth and have ‘good’ intentions they do not view what they tell you as a lie. The elements of partial truth and intent are important to them. Even when they tell you a 100% lie, if they are telling it to you with good intentions, they will excuse what they did and not see it as a lie.
In the liars world, intention is more important than truth. This is one reason why politicians often have no trouble lying. They are all about intention. Good intents are all that matters to them. Good intentions also serve as a convenient ploy to avoid dealing with the right or wrong of an action. In liar thinking, when you have good intentions, it balances out any wrong done in the process. Many kinds of evil and wrong doing are justified by having good intentions. You may hear them say, “I never intended…”, or “I didn’t mean to hurt you”, “I never wanted this to happen”, blah blah, blah. The emphasis again and again is on intent and not the right or wrong. You will need to listen to them carefully when they apologize. You will not hear right and wrong in terms of their behavior, but instead you will hear what they did or did not intend to happen. They may even mix it up and use the words right and wrong with their intent. This tricks some of you. By combining the words you want to hear with their ‘intents’, they trick you again into hearing what you want to hear, rather than listening to what they are truly saying.
In your world, it is likely that you view truth as more important that intent. When the two of you have such different value systems, it is hard to find workable, common ground. When they emphasize ‘intent’ and you emphasize ‘black and white facts’ or the ‘right or wrong of events’, each of you are headed in different directions. Although you want to forgive them, when they are still hung up on their intentions, the two of you are not connecting. They are going to want you to accept their good intentions. It is not by accident that the old saying “The road to hell is paved with good intent” has stuck around as long as it has.
Best Regards,
Jeff Murrah
One Response
I appreciate this article ….I found that even though I know a bit of Bible I do not always have confidence in my own gut…argh! In the past I always trusted people giving them the benefit of the doubt …not wanting to ‘think evil’ which got me into situations where I was taken advantage of by believers as well as my husband.
In some sense predators enter into churches counting upon the good faith of people who may not have the wisdom of time applied word in life.
Humanism also helped out generations to believe people are born GOOD and will always act for the good…..not …necessarily what God’s word reveals …but the ‘tells’ are not often obvious …been deceived by friends , family and close ministry leadership….people simply as you have pointed out believe they are ‘good’ and their choices and decisions …are beneficial or ‘necessary’ ….the ‘end justifies the means’ has been fed to generations now .
Funny …I always was taught to be honest and loyal …at least two of the godly character traits my mom made sure I knew.
I thought everyone was pretty much functioning by the ‘golden rule”….NOT! ….guess you live and learn.