Fooling Ourselves

Yeah, keep smiling, con man.

The following tale is a true story.

A certain missionary, while in China, spent the morning at a local outdoor market. The air was infused with the smell of dumplings and deep fried "Chinese donuts". Growing hungry, the missionary's eyes were drawn to a peanut salesman's stock of fresh walnuts.

As is customary in Chinese marketplaces, a certain amount of haggling is expected. But so is flagrant market fraud and various clever cons. Even though the missionary watched very carefully the weighing of the walnuts so as to avoid receiving a lighter load than the scale indicated, his desire to be generous and caring kept him from bargaining too hard for a deal. Instead -- though the missionary had no need of so many walnuts -- he offered a very fair price for a four kilogram (~9 lbs) bag of walnuts instead of the two kilograms that would have been plenty. He didn't notice any trickery in the weighing of his purchase so he felt good about being generous.

Once the missionary reached his apartment, he eagerly untied the plastic bag and emptied the fragrant walnuts into a large bowl and got ready to try them.

To his chagrin, the walnuts were nearly impossible to open, and when they were forced open, the nut inside was swollen and stuck to the nooks and crannies of the shell. The missionary realized he had been tricked! As a daily practice, the walnut salesman must have purposefully soaked his crop in water to increase its weight! Anger and resentment grew in the heart of the missionary. After all, he just wanted to be kind and helpful; but in return, he was betrayed and mocked.

It took some quite meditation and prayer before the missionary could find peace for himself and forgiveness from God.

When he contemplated more about the Walnut Salesman, the missionary began to feel sorry for him. For a little bit of extra money, the Walnut Salesman's greed forced him into an extra heavy load of walnuts every morning. If sold truly fresh walnuts, his burden would be much lighter than the waterlogged walnuts he carried daily. His con job made enemies with every one of his clients. If he were more honest, he could have satisfied patrons become repeat customers and perhaps even make some friends.

Instead, he was just fooling himself.

His greed did little to bring joy to his life and in the end, his dishonesty can only create bitterness and layers upon layers of guilt and remorse.But isn't this a picture of our relationship with God? God does nothing but good things for us - it's His very nature to do nothing but loving things for us - and how do we repay him? With betrayal, disobedience, and mockery.

We are only fooling ourselves when we try our own way. When we work extra hard for that bonus check at the end of the quarter or when we cheat a little in order to keep a larger portion for ourselves, we're only fooling ourselves. Our joy and our fortune doesn't come from these things. It comes from a heart that is dedicated to God.

Let's take inventory of ourselves and pray that we have hearts that seek after Him.