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The exploitation of your mind
Reflections from a devotional by John Piper. Our minds are being exploited... by our hearts. John Piper says, "..our deepest desires precede the rational functioning of our minds and incline the mind to perceive and think in a way that will make the desires look right."
Carolyn and I have begun to read together John Piper’s excellent devotional book Taste and See. She reads it and underlines before going to work at BHS, and then when I pick it up to read, I see her thoughts and record some of my own. We encourage you to consider it as a resource for personal or marital devotions.
On day five, he writes about Proverbs 22.13:
The sluggard says, “There is a lion outside!
I shall be killed in the streets!”(Proverbs 22:13 ESV)
He points out that he would have expected the coward to say that, not the sluggard. And then the bombshell:
“..our heart exploits our mind to justify what the heart wants. That is, our deepest desires precede the rational functioning of our minds and incline the mind to perceive and think in a way that will make the desires look right. It is an illusion to think that our hearts are neutral and incline in accordance with cool, rational observation of truth. On the contrary, we feel powerful desires or fears in our hearts, and then our minds bend reality to justify the desires and fears.
So why does the lazy person lie about a lion? Because he really just wants to stay home. The sad reality is that we all understand these mental gymnastics, and repetitive use of them actually leads us to believe the lies we tell ourselves.
Your mind is being exploited… by your heart.
Jeff, Food for thought: Piper is quoted as saying that “..our heart exploits our mind to justify what the heart wants. That is, our deepest desires precede the rational functioning of our minds and incline the mind to perceive and think in a way that will make the desires look right.†A problem I see here is that this statement represents the fallacy of the “self defeating argument.†If every statement we utter is not reasoned but simply a “pre-rational†statement of what we desire to be true, then Piper’s own statement is simply an unreasoned statement of his own… Read more »
Mark, this is great feedback, and I appreciate your taking time to process and respond in such a thoughtful way. I think you’d feel much better if you read the entire devotional for the day because Piper echoes some of your thoughts there. I simply selected a portion of it because it provoked me to thought (as it did you). I think his overall point is excellent. It’s a meditation on the passage in the Proverb, and truthfully, don’t we all “talk ourselves into” doing things that illogical just because we “want” to? We are also reminded in Jeremiah 16.12… Read more »