Your discrepancies are generators of inner turmoil …

There’s some wisdom in the admonition, “Don’t believe everything you read” or ‘Don’t believe everything your hear.”

It can also be wise not to believe everything you see.

Kind of like a story told about a zoo that was noted for its great collection of different animals. One day the gorilla died, and to keep up the appearance of a full range of animals, the zookeeper hired a man to wear a gorilla suit to fill in for the dead animal. It was his first day on the job, and the man didn’t know how to act like a gorilla very well. As he tried to move convincingly, he got too close to the wall of the enclosure and tripped and fell into the lion exhibit. He began to scream, convinced his life was over … until the lion spoke to him: “Be quiet, or you’re going to get us both fired!”

It is a common behavior for human beings to present themselves as being someone they really aren’t. We often say we believe one thing, but our behavior contradicts what we say. This is called a discrepancy, which is when what we say or present doesn’t match reality.

On the surface, the idea of a discrepancy doesn’t sound so bad, but in reality they are monstrous generators of internal conflict; the presence of a discrepancy between what we say we believe and how we actually live will foster inner turmoil that can be seriously corrosive to the whole of a person’s life.

Harboring a discrepancy in your life can:

• • Foster internal conflict mentally and emotionally.
  • Impact your physical health.
  • Rob you of any sense of peace.
  • Distract you in all aspects of life.
  • Negatively impact your relationships.
  • Even interfere with your relationship with God.
  • And can mislead others.

Let’s look at two examples from the Bible that demonstrate the above outcomes of maintaining discrepancies in your life.

First, there’s the story from the life of King David. At his “best,” scripture refers to him as “a man after God’s own heart” ((1 Samuel 13:14, Acts 13:22). Some of his worst behavior was his committing adultery with Bathsheba, who would become pregnant from this sinful behavior. David would compound his sin by arranging for the death of Bathsheba’s husband, Uriah, and then marrying Bathsheba. All this time David tried to hide his sin by attempting to be the godly man and king people thought he was (you can read the whole story in 2 Samuel 11 and 12). But the discrepancy between the faith he proclaimed and actions of his life were rotting David from the inside out:

“When I refused to confess my sin, my body wasted away, and I groaned all day long. Day and night your hand of discipline was heavy on me. My strength evaporated like water in the summer heat. Finally, I confessed all my sins to you and stopped trying to hide my guilt,” Psalm 32:3-5.

When the Apostle Peter allowed a discrepancy into his life, the influence of his inappropriate behavior caused others to stumble:

“But when Peter came to Antioch, I had to oppose him to his face, for what he did was very wrong. When he first arrived, he ate with the Gentile believers, who were not circumcised. But afterward, when some friends of James came, Peter wouldn’t eat with the Gentiles anymore. He was afraid of criticism from these people who insisted on the necessity of circumcision. As a result, other Jewish believers followed Peter’s hypocrisy, and even Barnabas was led astray by their hypocrisy,” Galatians 2:11-13.

Wholeness, as a follower of Jesus Christ, and for our mental and emotional health, requires us to resolve any discrepancies in our life so that what we say we believe, and how we actually live, are consistently harmonious. Refusal to resolve discrepancies will result in internal conflict and the sin of hypocrisy.

The good news is we can confess and repent of our sins and discrepancies and, like David, be restored with God and find peace:

“Oh, what joy for those whose disobedience is forgiven, whose sin is put out of sight! Yes, what joy for those whose record the Lord has cleared of guilt, whose lives are lived in complete honesty! When I refused to confess my sin, my body wasted away, and I groaned all day long. Day and night your hand of discipline was heavy on me. My strength evaporated like water in the summer heat. Interlude Finally, I confessed all my sins to you and stopped trying to hide my guilt. I said to myself, ‘I will confess my rebellion to the Lord.’ And you forgave me! All my guilt is gone. Interlude Therefore, let all the godly pray to you while there is still time, that they may not drown in the floodwaters of judgment,” Psalm32:1-6.

Scotty