Can you remember a time that you misjudged someone’s character or even your own integrity? We’ve all done or said something we swore or thought we would never do or say.
My pastor recently said that you don’t know people as well as you think you do. And I will add we don’t know ourselves as well as we think either.
When we talk about knowing someone, most often we’re speaking about a person’s character opposed to personality. The two, personality and character, aren’t synonymous. Personality is more about attitude, temperament, and appearances. Personality is the stuff and fluff you want others to see.
Character is a person’s beliefs and morality that determine behaviors and interactions with others. Character is moral or immoral convictions acted upon when you think no one is looking. Character is who you are naturally at midday and midnight.
You can change and jazz up your personality by taking off a pair of flats and putting on stilettos. Personality is the image you project for others to observe and experience. Someone may be friendly one moment and a pesky jerk the next. Romantic one moment and unaffectionate the next.
But you don’t arbitrarily take off and put on a different character. Honorable character traits include integrity, honesty, loyalty, and charity. The opposites of these are unprincipled attributes.
People say actions speak louder than words. This is true. But neither action nor bluster always implicates or reveals one’s character. What we see isn’t always what it appears to be.
One day a friend may be helpful, but another day hurtful. Is she a friend or a pretender? It isn’t easy to determine who and what are the real McCoy.
Who is the master of human character? Who knows us better than we know ourselves?
It’s not Mom, Dad sister, brother, wife, or husband.
There’s someone who knows us inside and out, through and through. God peels away our layers and sees our heart. He shaves away the pomp and circumstance, attitudes, and pretense to lay bare our true self.
In Psalm 139: 1 (KJV) David declares, “O LORD, thou hast searched me, and known me.”
God searches the pockets of our mind, heart, and soul. Nothing is hidden from him.
David could’ve stopped here about God’s fantastical knowledge of us, but he doesn’t. Filled with praise, he continues with verse two.
“Thou knowest my downsitting and mine uprising, thou understandest my thought afar off.”
God knows our every movement and action. Our temperaments, stirs, motives, and intentions are clear to him before we think or act. The Bible says that the eyes of God run to-and-fro throughout the earth.
The fact is God is a spirit, and He sees and knows everything.
In verses 3 and 4, David asserts, “Thou compassest my path and my lying down, and art acquainted with all my ways. For there is not a word in my tongue, but lo, O LORD, thou knowest it altogether.”
God has perfect knowledge of us. We are translucent. He has complete knowledge of me, you, and the whole of creation.
Someone said, “You can fool all the people some of the time and some of the people all the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time.”
Some historians attribute this quote to Abraham Lincoln. But regardless of who said it, the anecdote sounds good in theory and logical in practice.
But there is an ultimate truth about deception whereby theory and logic have no footing.
We can’t fool God at any time.
No one deceives him. He beholds the fallen and sky-ward-looking trees, inlaid stars, whispering winds, and even the strands of hair on our head. There’s no reason for Him to boast only for us to acknowledge this truth.
God sees the heart and outer parts.
It is a comfort to know when others get it wrong and misjudge us, God gets it right. He knows our heart, fluff, bluster, and all.