If you cannot recognize deception, you will eventually defend it.
Deception does not always look like a lie. Sometimes it comes dressed as truth. Sometimes it speaks with confidence, uses familiar language, or comes from someone we trust.
This is why discernment is more important than appearance.
What we fail to question, we may eventually accept. What we repeatedly accept, we may eventually protect. And what we protect long enough may become part of our identity.
Deception becomes even more powerful when it contains a little truth. Because part of it is true, we may assume everything about it is true.
But wisdom teaches us to examine before we embrace.
A wise person asks, Is this true? What is missing? What evidence supports it? What happens if I accept it? And does this agree with the truth I already know?
THE STORY OF OSISI OJOO: THE BAD TREE
There was once an old man who kept warning the people in his village about a beautiful tree that had grown near the village path.
The tree looked healthy. Its leaves were green, its branches were wide, and its fruit appeared attractive. But the old man warned them not to eat its fruit because he had discovered that the tree had been growing from contaminated soil.
Many people laughed at him.
They said, How can something so beautiful produce something harmful?
One young man called Ahuna-anya-ekwe, meaning seeing is believing, eventually ate the fruit and felt fine. He returned to the village and announced that the old man had been wrong.
Others followed him.
Because one person appeared unharmed, they stopped listening to the warning. They began defending the tree. They even accused the old man of trying to prevent them from enjoying something good.
But several days later, the consequences began to appear.
Ahuna-anya-ekwe started experiencing severe weakness. At first, he dismissed it.
He said, Nothing is wrong with the tree. I ate its fruit and nothing happened immediately.
But as the days passed, his condition became worse.
Those who had followed his example began experiencing similar symptoms. Some became weak. Others lost their appetite, and a few could no longer carry out their daily activities as they normally did.
Fear entered the village.
The people returned to the old man and asked him what had happened.
The old man looked at them and said, I warned you not because the tree looked bad, but because I knew what was beneath it.
The people had judged the tree by what they could see. The old man had examined what they could not see.
They eventually discovered that the soil beneath the tree had been contaminated by waste from a nearby source. The tree itself looked beautiful, but its roots had been drawing nourishment from something harmful.
Ahuna-anya-ekwe became deeply ashamed.
He had not only rejected the old man’s warning; he had persuaded others to reject it too.
His mistake had become another person’s mistake.
His confidence had given deception a voice.
He finally approached the old man and said, I thought because I could not see the danger, there was no danger.
The old man replied, That is the weakness of those who trust appearance more than discernment. The absence of immediate consequences does not mean the absence of danger.
The people learned a painful lesson.
Some consequences do not arrive immediately.
A wrong decision may initially produce pleasure before producing pain.
A false relationship may begin with excitement before producing disappointment.
A dishonest agreement may begin with profit before producing loss.
A deceptive idea may begin with popularity before producing confusion.
And a misleading voice may sound convincing before its consequences become visible.
This is why wisdom cannot be built merely on immediate results.
Ahuna-anya-ekwe had believed that because nothing happened immediately, the warning must have been false.
But time revealed what appearance had concealed.
The greatest consequence was not only the sickness caused by the fruit. It was the damage caused by misplaced confidence.
Because Ahuna-anya-ekwe trusted what he saw, he influenced others to trust it too.
This is how deception spreads.
One person accepts it.
Another person repeats it.
A third person defends it.
Soon, many people believe it simply because many people are saying it.
But repetition does not turn falsehood into truth.
Popularity does not turn deception into wisdom.
And confidence does not turn an untruth into truth.
The people eventually destroyed the tree and warned others not to eat from it.
But the experience remained in their memory as a reminder that some dangers are hidden beneath beautiful appearances.
Deception often survives because people become emotionally attached to what they should have examined objectively.
Sometimes we defend people because we love them.
Sometimes we defend ideas because we have invested too much in them.
Sometimes we defend decisions because admitting that we were wrong would be painful.
And sometimes we defend deception because recognizing it would require us to change.
This is where humility becomes important.
The ability to say, I may have been wrong, is a form of wisdom.
The Bible says:
PROVERBS 14:15 KJV
The simple believeth every word: but the prudent man looketh well to his going.
The prudent person does not believe every voice simply because it is loud. He looks carefully. He examines. He listens beyond appearances.
Discernment does not mean becoming suspicious of everyone. It means becoming careful about what you accept as truth.
Not every disagreement is deception. Not every mistake is manipulation. Not every different opinion is dishonesty. But when evidence reveals that something is false, wisdom requires the courage to stop defending it.
Sometimes the greatest danger is not being deceived.
It is becoming so committed to the deception that we begin to protect it.
Truth does not become false because we have defended a lie for a long time.
And deception does not become truth because many people have accepted it.
Therefore, learn to examine before you defend.
Listen before you conclude.
Observe before you trust.
Do not confuse appearance with truth.
Do not allow one temporary experience to become your entire evidence.
Do not make others believe what you have not carefully examined.
Remember that some consequences take time to appear.
And whenever truth reveals that you have been wrong, choose correction over pride.
There is wisdom in saying, I was wrong.
You do not lose your dignity because you corrected yourself. You gain wisdom because you refused to allow pride to keep you in error.
The story of Osisi Ojoo teaches us that deception does not always announce itself.
Sometimes it grows quietly.
Sometimes it looks beautiful.
Sometimes it produces immediate pleasure.
Sometimes everyone around us approves of it.
And sometimes the person warning us may appear to be the one who does not understand.
But truth is not always obvious, and deception is not always ugly.
Therefore, do not live only by what your eyes can see.
Look deeper.
Question what needs to be questioned.
Examine what needs to be examined.
Listen carefully.
Seek wisdom.
And when truth exposes something you once defended, have enough humility to change your position.
Because the greatest danger is not merely being deceived.
The greater danger is becoming so convinced by deception that you begin to defend it, spread it, and eventually suffer the consequences of it.
Sometimes wisdom is simply the courage to ask:
What am I defending, and have I truly examined it?
That question can save a person from protecting the very thing that will eventually destroy them.
