Familiarity With The False

by Adam R. Parchert

A while back, a friend of mine handed me a crisp $100 bill while he wore a slightly mischievous smile on his face. Suspecting something suspicious was going on, I inspected the bill. Security strip: check; sharp, crisp printed lines: check; correct coloring: check; accurate picture of Ben: check. But then I saw the dead giveaway that it was, sadly, a fake. Written in bold text across the back was ‘In Props we Trust’. A fake, prop bill…but, wow, did it look like the real thing! Convincing…but fake. 

This fake had an effect on me that I didn’t expect. Even though it had little or no value, I still felt compelled to hold tightly to it and to place it in a secure location. Even though it had approximately the same value as an old napkin, there was something inside me that drew me to give it a higher value. I took it home and put it on the counter in my kitchen.

One by one, as my wife and kids walked by the fake bill, they grabbed it with excitement, wanting to claim it for themselves, likely wondering why I would leave such a large amount of cash just lying around. They eventually analyzed the bill and came to the same conclusion I did… a convincing fake. Their disappointment was slightly entertaining to witness. 

After a few days of the bill sitting on my counter, something interesting came to my awareness. Even though it was a known imposter, I couldn’t bring myself to throw it away. It just looked so real. Periodically, I would catch a glimpse of it and experience an almost instinctual moment of excitement at finding cash lying around, only for that excitement to evaporate. I considered putting it in a drawer somewhere, so I could still keep it around. But what if I forgot it was there, and a year from now, I’d have to go through that excitement/disappointment cycle all over again? Or worse yet, one of the kids finds it and spend it. Visions of the U.S. Secret Service kicking down my front door to arrest us for counterfeiting ran through my head. Maybe I could give it to someone else or drop it on the ground at the park and watch the joke play out in someone else’s life… let the prank roll forward. But then I thought better of it. Having a counterfeit version of a valuable item in my daily life was genuinely distracting. It acted only to remind me that the real thing indeed did exist, and this was NOT it. 

I decided that I had no other choice. I opened up the trash and tossed it in… never to be seen again.

I imagined having a stack of fake $100 bills in my hands and mixing in one single genuine bill, then throwing the whole stack up in the air. Would I be able to identify the real one quickly? It would not be easy; it would take careful examination and time. To do so would feel burdensome and foolish. Why mix in the genuine with the counterfeit, the real with the fake? Would someone take a genuine diamond and mix it in with a bucket of worthless fragments of glass and then toss it into the front yard? It makes no sense. Most would agree that certain things, like cash, jewelry, and other valuables, have deep, intrinsic value and must be handled with particular deference and intentionality. We likely wouldn’t leave a $100 bill lying around on the counter for anyone to grab. So why are we so prone to allow counterfeits and fakes that satisfy for a time but ultimate leave us wanting into our lives when it comes to emotional, spiritual, and moral matters?

Inside you, there is a pull toward something greater than yourself. Although you may not recognize it as such, this is the pull of your soul toward God as your physical being is challenged to growth, improvement, and betterment. We were designed by God with the soul-level needs to: live with a genuine purpose, thrive in fulfilling relationships, and live a life in-tune with Him. The first two humans on the newly created Earth, Adam and Eve, experienced these soul-level needs of: purpose, relationship, and relation with God. 

First, God gave Adam a purpose. To care and maintain the beautiful Garden of Eden that they lived in:

The Lord God took the man and placed him in the orchard in Eden to care for it and to maintain it. - Genesis 2:15 NET

Second, God gave the gift of genuine relationship through the creation of Eve.

The Lord God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a companion for him who corresponds to him.”

So the Lord God caused the man to fall into a deep sleep, and while he was asleep, he took part of the man’s side and closed up the place with flesh. Then the Lord God made a woman from the part he had taken out of the man, and he brought her to the man. Then the man said, “This one at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; this one will be called ‘woman,’ for she was taken out of man.” - Genesis 2:18, 21-23 NET

Third, God gave them access to a relationship with Him.

Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the Lord God moving about in the orchard at the breezy time of the day, and they hid from the Lord God among the trees of the orchard. But the Lord God called to the man and said to him, “Where are you?” - Genesis 3:8-9 NET

For these soul-level needs, God gave a genuine, honest and incorruptible way to fulfill them. But, just as the first humans did in their perfect garden home, we live with the strong tendency to allow counterfeits to fill these needs. We, consciously and unconsciously leave the counterfeits ‘laying on the counter’ and struggle with the daily urge to pick them up. Adam and Eve picked up a counterfeit truth by listening to the lies and half truths of the serpent. They thought the convincing fake he presented would bring them so much more than it did. Temporarily it met their immediate need, but when that fleeting moment passed, they were left wanting for so much more.

In what ways do you feel the draw of those soul-level needs in your life? The draw toward purpose, genuine relationship connections, and spiritual connection with God? 

Think about the ways you are currently fulfilling these needs. At the end of the day, when you are alone with your thoughts, do the ways you are filling these soul-level needs bring you a sense of wholeness and soul-level fulfillment? Or, after the adrenaline, hormones, or buzz wears off, are you left feeling empty, unfulfilled, wanting for something more? The former are the characteristics of handling the genuine, real thing; the later are signs that you are using a counterfeit to meet your needs. Like the fake $100 bill sitting on my counter, every time I engage with addictive habits, unhealthy relationships, and spiritual counterfeits, I enter into the same cycle of excitement/disappointment. 

So, I challenge you to seek the genuine and throw away the counterfeits. But, be aware, that if you don’t replace the counterfeits with something that is genuine, you will likely just create, and discover, and pick up new fakes.