“Many run from the truth and dread it. Others mock it and deny it. Why do we deny the truth? Are we trying to obtain comfort by denial? Is denial the ultimate comfort zone? How could denying the truth bring comfort? One of the primary reasons we run from the truth is to feel the quick comfort denial “sort of” provides. It’s important to understand that kind of comfort is like a painkiller offering almost instant temporary relief but having forever side effects with greater discomfort caused by unresolved issues. The truth, especially when it’s harsh or challenges long-held beliefs, can be unsettling and sometimes overwhelming. It forces us to confront realities that may demand significant changes in our lives, correcting behaviors and perspectives, and possibly altering social status and current circumstances.
For many, the idea of revising our worldview or admitting being wrong is too daunting. Sometimes denial can offer a short-term refuge or shelter and serve as a method to avoid “taking the next step” and advancing on our road of progress. Denial is certainly an option and seems to help justify staying where we currently are and resisting movement forward or upward. It allows us to maintain our existing beliefs and avoid the discomfort that comes with facing the truth.
Denial is a dangerous drug, a powerful thing encouraging us to believe lies and dismiss the truth we don’t want to hear. Denial is a way to be selective about the “reality” we perceive or the “actuality” we desire. It also protects our fantasies, fallacies, and illusions we choose to keep, but it does not bring long-term peace to the soul, heart, or mind. Denial is indeed an enemy to peace and progress.
Protesting the path to remove our problems, rejecting the idea to discard our shortcomings, failing to admit to our errors, refusing to correct our wrong-doings, and avoiding accountability for ourselves is damning and definitely slows the flow of progression. When we refuse to listen to the truth, hear it, and soften our hard hearts, sometimes our advancement and forward movement are stopped cold and frozen for a season until our hearts, actions, and situations change. By dodging responsibility, driving around obstacles, and hiding problems without courageously facing them head on, we will not only be required to carry the growing burden already upon us, but find ourselves further loaded with the development and manifestation of additional weights, outcomes, and side effects that naturally follow anyone with a prideful and hardened heart.
Whenever the truth is spoken or shared, it is common to be offended. But generally, the truth only offends us when we are not living it and are feeling guilty about it or, in some form from our perspective, it messes up our plan or way of life. Therefore, we are not interested in hearing any more about it and often rebel and actively fight against it by mocking, denying and rejecting the truth declared. To justify, we tend to see ourselves as good and the “truth-teller” as bad and feel a desperate need to make sure others surely know that.
“Now, my son, I don’t want you to let these things trouble you anymore. Just let your sins trouble you with the fear that will humble you to repent. My son, I don’t want you to deny God’s justice anymore. Don’t try to excuse yourself in the least degree because of your sins by denying God’s justice. On the contrary, let God’s justice and mercy and long-suffering have full sway in your heart, and let them bring you down to the dust in humility.” … (Alma 19:17 CE)
“If you look for truth, you may find comfort in the end; if you look for comfort you will not get either comfort or truth, only soft soap and wishful thinking to begin, and in the end, despair.” C. S. Lewis
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