I’m a sucker for optical illusions. From time to time we all fall for a trick that enters our brains through our eyes and fools us into thinking something is, that isn’t.

For example, we can watch a movie of someone tight-roping across Niagara Falls and get all knotted up inside watching him take that  tremendous risk. Later we might learn it was just special effects and that the actor was actually walking on a tight rope only 3” off the floor during filming.

Or, we might stare at a drawing for a long time trying to decide if parallel lines are the same length or if our eyes are fooling us. In reality, we’re fooling ourselves. We look at the lines and are sure they’re different lengths. Logic tells us that something farther away should be smaller, so the line located farther down the track must be longer. Actually, they’re the same length.

I witnessed another illusion through my iPhone just this morning. Although I’m 4000 miles from Hans and his family of 6, they graciously send frequent pictures and videos to keep me current. Baby Andrew, only 7 weeks old, has begun to smile now, and today I received a picture that made him appear much older and bigger than his calendar age suggests.

I was taken aback when I opened the text, seeing how much he’d grown and changed since birth, and I haven’t even met him yet! Later, though, I saw other pictures of him on Facebook that included his bigger siblings and saw how really little Andrew still is, a reassuring discovery. His iPhone photo had just been taken at close range.

Life serves up illusions of all kinds. We’ve watched magic shows in which it seems the magician can perform real miracles! Our brains believe what our eyes see, but of course each of his tricks is just a ruse. When we’re told the how-to behind his “miracles”, we can’t believe we were so easily duped.

The absolute greatest of life’s illusions, though, can do some real damage. The magician behind them is an expert who delights in twisting truth into lies.

Let’s say we’re working hard to live righteously before God, but an opportunity comes along to fudge on something…. just a little. It would bring significant benefit to us, and so we seriously consider it. Eventually we decide to veer from a biblical standard and believe an illusion that seems trustworthy at the time.

There is, indeed, an immediate benefit, but it turns out to be short-lived. The lasting reality is that we’ve hurt ourselves and those we love by trusting in an illusion from the ultimate in deceivers, Satan. Every single time we’re tempted to do something shady, he is liar behind it.

So, the next time we’re marveling over an illusion, we’d better investigate its source. We just might save ourselves from a devastating encounter with the master-illusionist.

“The snake deceived Eve with his devious tricks,  ….the serpent of old who is called the devil and Satan, who deceives the whole world.” (2 Corinthians 11:3 & Revelation 12:9)