We believe what we want to believe, and if we can’t prove it we make it up.

We look for some small truth in the thing we want to believe and exploit it or exaggerate it into something that seems significant.

This week, at the women’s world cup of soccer, the USA woman’s team beat Thailand 13 to zero. 

That doesn’t even sound like a soccer score. That would be a high score for a hockey game. Baseball scores sometimes get up that high. 

For soccer this is extremely rare. In fact, I’d watch soccer more if they scored like that every game. 

In the first round of the tournament, out of 11 games, the average score was only 1.7 goals per game. And the US scored 13 all by themselves.

As a result, there was a furious rage against the USA for this game, with all kinds of bad press all over the world against them. How could they run up the score on a team like that? 

Now, the bad press directed towards the US was not as much about the score as it was about their celebrations after they scored each goal.

They cele’d hard, acting like they were playing in the world cup title match – BIG celebrations! … players holding up the number of fingers of how many goals they had personally scored … group hugs after goals. 

Thirteen times they did this! 

The USA took a beating by the press on the world stage.

Later in the week, I was listening to a Christian radio station that is based in the States. The announcers were talking about the game and the reactions by other media. 

They defended the USA team, saying it was good for the Thai team to get beat, because it will make them better. 

“I love it” one announcer said. “When my kids get beat in soccer, I cheer it. I think it’s great, because it calls them to learn and improve their skills …”

“… So way to go, USA. You did the other team a favour.”

I was steamed at this point! What bugged everyone was that the US team didn’t just beat up on the Thai team, they humiliated them. 

These announcers chose to ignore the truth and make something up that they could believe … because that’s what they wanted to believe. 

They made up a fanciful story to go with their belief.

I would love to see that announcer comfort her son or daughter the next time he or she gets trounced. I bet she doesn’t go off on her kid, saying, “This was great, Johnny! You learned so much today. You are a better player now.” 

The truth is, if the USA players had have gone out and played their game and not whooped it up, not tried to humiliate the Thai team, but just did their work, there would have been far less criticism from the press. 

… And the whole story would have slipped by those radio announcers unnoticed.  

Here’s the thing: We all have a propensity to believe what we want to believe and so we bend or mould truth to fit our beliefs. With your faith, be sure that you are not making up a story to support what you want to believe. Study God’s word so that what you choose to believe is based on what God says is true and not just what you want to be true.

That’s Life!

Paul

Question: When have you bent the truth to fit your beliefs? Leave your comments below.