" At a minimum, ruling passions can impede our relationships with God, family, friends, and ministry. At worst, they have the potential to take our lives."
enough. What’ s wrong with me?”
Exploring John’ s personal history and the development of his ruling passions illuminated why he had become so deceptive, to the point of being a pathological liar. He described his father as a“ tough Irish policeman” who had been extremely abusive. John had been chronically ill as a child and his father was ashamed of John’ s frail state and his failure to fight or defend himself when picked on by neighborhood boys. Instead of empathizing or offering to protect him, his father severely punished John by forcing him to dress up in girl’ s clothing and sit outside on the steps all day long, subject to the humiliating taunt of the other neighborhood boys. This intensely painful experience led John to make the following vows:“ I will never be humiliated again. I will never put myself in a position where I will feel the embarrassment and shame I felt when I was teased by those boys.” Feeling his father’ s shame and disapproval only fueled John’ s longing for his father’ s love and affection.
John also related that his parents showed greater interest and delight in him when he embellished stories of what he did in school, inventing details to make them more exciting. Receiving the admiration he craved led to other internal vows:“ I will impress others. I will get others to admire me.” Over the years, these vows became the foundation for developing a dishonest style of relating to people. After spending years in sales and marketing where his exaggerations became habitual, automatic, and unconscious, John created charitable ministries to serve needy communities. Although he never stole anything, he engaged in“ puffing,” exaggerated his abilities, made misrepresentations to donors and vendors, and commingled funds. He lied to himself, he lied about finances, and he lied about essential facts in ministry. John’ s life demonstrated that the“ penalty of deception is to become a deception, with all sense of moral discrimination vitiated. A man who lies habitually becomes a lie, and it is increasingly impossible for him to know when he is lying and when he is not.” 3 Virtually unaware of the degree to which self-deception had overtaken him, John viewed himself as serving the kingdom of God and helping others in desperate need. He loved the admiration he received; he often portrayed himself as“ noble” and as the“ hero.” Looking back over his life, he observed how he saw himself:“ I’ m the knight in shining armor.”
" At a minimum, ruling passions can impede our relationships with God, family, friends, and ministry. At worst, they have the potential to take our lives."
As we uncovered his history of abuse and pattern of lying, John was able to see that his understandable longing for admiration, love, and respect morphed into an ugly, sinful
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