Secrecy

A new survey from Bankrate.com found that 40% of adults in the U.S. with a live-in partner have committed financial infidelity. Younger generations were more likely to keep money secrets: 67% of Gen Zers said they have confessed at least one instance of financial infidelity, followed by Millennials at 54%.

What sort of things are they hiding? 33% are spending more than their spouse or partner would be cool with, and 23% have racked up debt that their partner has no knowledge of. Others keep secret credit or savings accounts.

Avigail Lev, director at Bay Area Cognitive Behavioral Therapy says, “Choosing to be private about where and how you spend your money is just privacy. (But) having agreements with your partner about how you use money and hiding it on purpose, lying or deceiving, that’s financial infidelity.”

Money is one of the leading causes of divorce, yet often couples still struggle to communicate openly about finances. CPA Melisssa Pavone says, “Many couples never unpack their financial history and beliefs, leading to misunderstandings and resentment. Without open dialogue, secrets fester and financial infidelity can erode trust — just like physical infidelity.”

Why would someone who loves you deeply be dishonest about money? CPA Emily Luk says, “Sometimes it’s about guilt or fear — worrying that their partner won’t approve of a certain purchase, or that an old financial mistake might scare them off. Other times, it’s a way to avoid conflict or keep the peace. They might think it’s easier to conceal credit card statements than to have a tough conversation."

There can be differences in couples' money personalities and values: One is a spender, the other a saver. But money can also take the form of power, control, safety, past financial trauma, or even a mental health issue, substance use, or gambling disorder.

A man and a woman in Tennessee were arrested when they attempted to sell stolen goods at a pawn shop. 30-year-old Jeremy Watts and 24-year-old Jessica Heady tried to sell two PlayStation systems along with controllers, video games, and DVDs. The only problem with their plan was that the goods happened to be from the house of the pawnshop owner.

The owner, Edward Dial, said that he recognized the items and when he went home to check, saw that his home had indeed been burglarized. Watts and Heady were arrested and charged with aggravated burglary.

Possible Preaching Angle: Sin can be a tempting choice when the victim is faceless and nameless. But in reality, that's never the case. Sin always has a victim, as David says in Psalm 51:4 "Against you, you only, have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight."

Do you have a deep, dark secret?

Edgar Allan Poe’s 1843 short story “The Tell-Tale Heart” describes a man slowly going mad because of a dark secret. The narrator recounts a murder he has committed, of an old man with a filmy blue “vulture eye,” whose regard the murderer simply could not endure.

The narrator-killer hides the old man’s body under the floorboards of his house, but then he begins to hear the beating of the dead man’s heart beneath his feet. The sound—clearly a metaphor for the murderer’s tormenting shame and guilt—grows louder and louder. In the end, the narrator can stand the thumping no longer; seeking relief, he confesses his crime to the police.

Most, if not all, of us have guilty secrets, secrets we have never told anyone. Psychologists call the secrets we keep about ourselves “self-concealment.” Although what you self-conceal might feel uniquely shameful, the experience of carrying a guilty secret really doesn’t vary that much across the population. Michael Slepian, a professor of leadership and ethics at Columbia University, maintains a website called KeepingSecrets, which organizes into various categories the things that people are hiding from others. The most common secrets anonymously cataloged involve infidelity or indiscretion. In short: Your own tell-tale heart probably involves love and sex.

Document MS 165, also known as the ‘Shark Papers,’ is a unique manuscript found at the National Library of Jamaica. It tells the enthralling story of the American brig the ‘Nancy,’ implicated in a court case for smuggling, filed by British Commander Hugh Whylie.

Hugh Whylie's vessel, the Sparrow had captured the ‘Nancy’ in 1799 in the waters of the Caribbean (an area that was forbidden at that time for American vessels), on suspicion of smuggling contraband. However, its captain, Thomas Briggs provided documentation to show that the vessel was Dutch and not American, and therefore had authority to sail in that area. He insisted they were not doing anything illegal. Although not having concrete proof, Captain Whylie, on suspicion, nevertheless sent the crew of the ‘Nancy’ to Jamaica for a court hearing.

Since the captain of the ‘Nancy’ seemed to have his paperwork well in order, for a while it looked like the case could not be sustained due to a lack of evidence of smuggling or of the brig being of American origin.

The story took a new twist however with the arrival of another British vessel, the ‘Ferret,’ whose crew had caught a large shark off the Haitian coast around the same time. To the surprise of the crew, they found sealed documents from the ‘Nancy’ in the shark’s belly. They had apparently been thrown overboard to avoid being convicted for smuggling.

The documents taken from the shark’s belly contained receipts, letters, notary documents, and bills from the ‘Nancy,’ and eventually proved vital in convicting Captain Briggs of smuggling and perjury.

Possible Preaching Angle:

In Luke 12:2, Jesus, speaking about the hypocrisy of the Pharisees said, “There is nothing concealed that will not be disclosed, or hidden that will not be made known.” Numbers 32:23 further warns us, “...be sure, your sin will find you out.”

Certain words that many companies use in their annual reports—words like ethical, integrity and responsibility—are meant to convey trustworthiness. But research suggests that companies that use such words in annual filings known are often hiding their untrustworthiness.

The study found that use of “trust” words in annual statements was linked with a decreased interest in the stock of the company in question. Basing their findings on 21 words that seek to evoke a sense of trustworthiness, the authors also found that companies whose annual filings included the words tended to pay about $100,000 more in auditing fees than firms without the words.

Companies using trust words were also about 15% more likely to receive a comment letter from the Securities and Exchange Commission asking them to clarify information on their annual report than companies that didn’t use trust words.

One of the researchers wrote, “Companies likely use trust words to project a positive image and better manage information within the annual report, but it seems that no one is really fooled.”

An investigation by the French newspaper Le Monde revealed a potential security threat for several world leaders. The confidential movements of France’s president Macron, President Biden, Vice President Harris, and former president Trump -- even after two assassination attempts on Trump – were easily tracked online through a fitness app used by their bodyguards.

The security agents were found using the Strava app, which is primarily used by runners and cyclists to record their activities and share their workouts. The data it collects can also be used to track users' locations.

The newspaper identified a total of 44 U.S., French, and Russian security agents, all responsible for presidential security, who had public Strava accounts. Their movements, including professional trips, were therefore communicated online.

The U.S. Secret Service said in a statement to Le Monde that while staff are not allowed to use personal electronic devices while on duty, “we do not prohibit an employee’s personal use of social media off-duty.” However, they added that “affected personnel have been notified" and that they "will review this information to determine if any additional training or guidance is required.”

These potential security breaches illustrate the risks associated with tech companies and consumer data. "Companies love our data, and we love the product, so we give away the data for free," said Ibrahim Baggili, professor of cybersecurity at Louisiana State University. "The government really needs to start cracking down on how data can be used and how long it can be retained."

Possible Preaching Angle:

God gives us the freedom to decide how to live, but we must consider how our choices affect others.

A report released by the New York City public school district alleges that school employees misused funds intended for homeless students' enrichment activities, including trips to Disney World, New Orleans, and other destinations. Six employees took their children or grandchildren on these trips, which were funded by grants specifically designated for homeless students.

Linda Wilson was identified as the key figure in this scheme. Wilson served the regional manager responsible for assisting students in temporary housing in Queens. The report alleges that Wilson not only took her own children on trips sponsored by grants for homeless students but also encouraged her subordinates to do the same. She allegedly told staff, “What happens here stays with us.”

To cover up the misuse of funds, Wilson forged permission slips using students' names and worked with an outside contractor to book the trips, flying under the radar of the less stringent oversight of community-based organizations. Had she booked directly through the city's Department of Education (DOE), she would’ve likely been caught sooner.

The investigation into this misconduct was initiated in May 2019 following a whistleblower complaint and concluded in January 2023. The report recommends the termination of Wilson and the five employees involved, and that the DOE seek reimbursement for all misappropriated funds. Both the DOE and the NYC Conflicts of Interest Board have accepted the report's findings and initiated actions accordingly.

Possible Preaching Angle:

God is deeply concerned with the welfare of the poor and oppressed. When those in positions of power misuse funds intended for the vulnerable, it is a grave injustice that God sees and will hold them accountable.

For some governments, persecuting Christians is the default mode. Matthew Luxmoore reports that Evangelical churches are being targeted by Moscow in Russian-held cities in Ukraine. In occupied Ukraine, some evangelical churches continue to operate after pledging fealty to the Russian authorities.

Others, such as Melitopol’s Church of God’s Grace and parishes in the villages surrounding Melitopol, continue to meet in secret at followers’ houses, scrambling to hide their Bibles and their instruments as soon as they hear a dog bark or a gate creak open. One evangelical minister who now leads clandestine prayer services at his home said: “We have gone underground.”

Underground services have become a necessity because of incidents like this in Zaporizhzhia, Ukraine. Moments after the band struck up a song of praise at a Christian church in a Russian-held city, Russian soldiers stormed in wearing full tactical gear. One of them mounted the stage and told the congregation to prepare their documents for inspection.

After a public outcry and a round of bad press against the entertainment behemoth, Jeffrey Piccolo’s lawsuit against Disney will proceed as planned.

Piccolo and his wife, Kanokporn Tangsuan, were dining in a restaurant called Raglan Road, which is of part of the Disney Springs shopping center adjacent to the Disney World entertainment complex. Despite making her food allergies clear and being reassured that her meal would be allergen free, Tangsuan suffered an allergic reaction after her meal, and died of anaphylaxis.

Piccolo subsequently sued Raglan Road, and included Disney in its list of defendants, despite the fact that Disney didn’t own the restaurant but merely leased it the space to operate. As part of Disney’s defense, it cited some fine print in the Disney+ end user license agreement (EULA), in which the user agrees to resolve any future disputes in arbitration rather than court. Similar legal language is included any time a customer books a ticket to any of its theme parks.

Corporations like Disney often prefer arbitration over litigation because it’s faster, more cost efficient, and its rulings are binding. Also, because arbitration proceedings are private, there’s no risk of dirty laundry being exposed in court.

But a firestorm of controversy erupted because of all the public attention on Disney. It appeared the company was using a legal technicality to avoid any measure of legal culpability in Tangsuan’s death. As a result, the company reversed course. Disney Experiences chairman Josh D’Amaro released a statement, which included the following:

At Disney, we strive to put humanity above all other considerations. With such unique circumstances as the ones in this case, we believe this situation warrants a sensitive approach to expedite a resolution for the family who have experienced such a painful loss. As such, we've decided to waive our right to arbitration and have the matter proceed in court.

Possible Preaching Angle:

Though there are advantages to avoiding the formality of court to settle informal disputes, the court is society’s official means of securing a measure of justice and accountability. Businesses which use loopholes to shortcut justice will fall under God’s condemnation (Prov. 11:1; Deut. 25:16).

Darkness captivates, baffles, and appalls us. It's a shifty thing of many textures, many moods, a state of fascination and of horror, an absence and a presence, solace and threat, a beginning and an end.

If you have ever been down a mine and been told by a guide to switch off your lamp you may feel like you have experienced it. But quantum physics has found that you are in fact surrounded by light you cannot see, for true darkness “does not exist.” Light particles—photons—exist throughout the known universe and beyond it.

Possible Preaching Angle:

Darkness is no impediment to our all-seeing God (Heb. 4:13). The One who created light (Gen. 1:3), sees all things (Prov. 15:3), nothing can conceal us from God, not even the deepest cave. Psalm 139:11-12 “… If I say, ‘Surely the darkness will hide me, and the light become night around me’—even the darkness is not dark to You, but the night shines like the day, for darkness is as light to You.”

Bitcoin is a digital currency that promises complete anonymity for user’s transactions on the web. Among the users of Bitcoin are speculators who hope to profit from its volatility. Others like to use Bitcoin hoping to escape from the control of governments and central banks. A third group are criminals who use Bitcoin because they think it can provide them with anonymity when they buy and sell illegal goods, such as drugs, weapons, and hacking tools.

Sarah Meiklejohn, a UC San Diego computer science grad student, began to fill the shelves of a storage room in a building of UC San Diego with strange, seemingly random objects. A Casio calculator. A pair of alpaca wool socks. An album by the classic rock band Boston on CD.

Sarah was conducting a novel experiment to test Bitcoin's anonymity. She challenged the notion that Bitcoin was an ideal way to conceal one's identity and money online. She aimed to prove that Bitcoin transactions could often be tracked, even by users who thought they were anonymous.

So, she used her random purchases to test her theory and recorded all her transactions on a spreadsheet and checked the blockchain's public records. Her goal was to find patterns that would expose the owners and spenders of Bitcoins. She was confident that she could link those addresses to real individuals or entities.

Meiklejohn manually tagged hundreds of addresses with her transactions, which were a tiny fraction of the whole Bitcoin network. But when she applied her tagging, chaining, and clustering methods to the immense Bitcoin blockchain, many of those tags revealed not just one address but a huge cluster owned by the same person. With just a few hundred tags, she identified more than a million of Bitcoin's pseudonymous addresses.

In their final paper, Meiklejohn and her coauthors stated their conclusions: The blockchain was not untraceable, but a transparent ledger could expose large portions of transactions among people, many of whom believed they were anonymous. After Meiklejohn's work, a new era of cryptocurrency tracing began, and they would not stay anonymous for long.

Possible Preaching Angle:

Hiddenness; Omniscience of God - The belief that sins can be concealed is as old as the Garden of Eden. Adam and Eve mistakenly thought that they could hide from God. In the same way, many people today believe that they can hide their activities from God and that they can do whatever they want without accountability or penalty. Their misplaced confidence will lead them to a shocking day of judgment at the Great White Throne of the all-knowing God.

Charles Feeney was raised by working-class parents who struggled during the Depression to pay a $32 monthly mortgage. He served in the Air Force and got into the duty-free shopping business. The business went global. Profits were enormous. By the early 1980s he was plowing tax-free annual dividends of $35 million into hotels, land deals, retail shops, and clothing companies. He later invested in tech start-ups and multiplied his income exponentially. By age 50, he had palatial homes in New York, London, Paris, Honolulu, San Francisco, Aspen, and on the French Riviera.

But as Feeney said later, “I just reached the conclusion with myself that money, buying boats and all the trimmings didn’t appeal to me.” So, Feeney sold his limousines. He quit going to fancy restaurants and bought his clothes off the rack.

He decided to give away his money before he died—secretly. He gave $2.7 billion to fund 1,000 buildings on five continents, and his name appeared on none of them. He gave grants by cashier’s checks to conceal the source.

Feeney funded public-health facilities in Vietnam, the University of Limerick and Trinity College in Ireland, AIDS clinics in South Africa, Operation Smile’s free surgeries for children with cleft lips and palates, a medical campus for the University of California at San Francisco, and earthquake relief in Haiti.

In his last decades, Feeney did not own a home or a car, wore a $10 wristwatch, preferred buses to taxis and, until he was 75, flew coach. He lived in a two-bedroom rented apartment in San Francisco.

Why did he do it? He said, “I cannot think of a more personally rewarding and appropriate use of wealth than to give while one is living, to personally devote oneself to meaningful efforts to improve the human condition.”

Bad news, your car is a spy. If your vehicle was made in the last few years, you’re probably driving around in a data-harvesting machine that may collect personal information as sensitive as your race, weight, and sexual activity. Volkswagen’s cars reportedly know if you’re fastening your seatbelt and how hard you hit the brakes.

That’s according to new findings from Mozilla’s *Privacy Not Included project. The nonprofit found that every major car brand fails to adhere to the most basic privacy and security standards in new internet-connected models. Mozilla found brands including BMW, Ford, Toyota, Tesla, and Subaru collect data about drivers including race, facial expressions, weight, health information, and where you drive. Some of the cars tested collected data you wouldn’t expect your car to know about, including details about sexual activity, race, and immigration status, according to Mozilla.

Jen Caltrider of the *Privacy Not Included project said,

Many people think of their car as a private space — somewhere to call your doctor, have a personal conversation with your kid on the way to school, cry your eyes out over a break-up, or drive places you might not want the world to know about. But that perception no longer matches reality. All new cars today are privacy nightmares on wheels that collect huge amounts of personal information.

Modern cars use a variety of data harvesting tools including microphones, cameras, and the phones drivers connect to their cars. Manufacturers also collect data through their apps and websites, and can then sell or share that data with data brokers, law enforcement, and other third parties.

Possible Preaching Angle:

If this causes concern for every car owner and passenger because of the constant observation of our actions, imagine how aware we should be of God’s attention to all of our words, thoughts, and actions.

According to a report in the Wall Street Journal, telecom companies have left behind a sprawling network of cables covered in toxic lead that stretches across the US. The toxic lead exists under the water, in the soil, and on poles overhead. As the lead degrades, it is ending up in places where Americans live, work, and play.

The lead can be found on the banks of the Mississippi River in Louisiana, the Detroit River in Michigan, the Willamette River in Oregon, and the Passaic River in New Jersey. The metal has tainted the soil at a popular fishing spot in New Iberia, Louisiana, at a playground in Wappingers Falls, New York, and in front of a school in suburban New Jersey.

There’s a hidden source of contamination—more than 2,000 lead-covered cables—that hasn’t been addressed by the companies or environmental regulators. These relics of the old Bell System’s regional telephone network, and their impact on the environment, haven’t been previously reported.

Lead levels in sediment and soil at more than four dozen locations tested exceeded safety recommendations set by the US Environmental Protection Agency. At the New Iberia fishing spot, lead leaching into the sediment near a cable in June 2022 measured 14.5 times the EPA threshold for areas where children play. “We’ve been fishing here since we were kids,” said 27-year-old Tyrin Jones who grew up a few blocks away.

For many years, telecom companies have known about the lead-covered cables and the potential risks of exposure to their workers, according to documents and interviews with former employees. They were also aware that lead was potentially leaching into the environment, but haven’t meaningfully acted on potential health risks.

Possible Preaching Angle:

In the same way, unconfessed and unaddressed sin or wounds from our past can leach toxins into our body and into the body of Christ.

Author Brené Brown was at a book signing where a woman and her husband approached her with books to get autographed. After Brown signed the books, the wife turned to leave and said, “Come on, hon” to her husband. “No,” he replied, “I want to talk with her for a second.”

Uncomfortable, Brown just waited. The man then looked at her and said, “I really love all this stuff you're talking about, this shame, and being perfect, and having to be someone we're not, and having to reach out. It is really powerful. But I never heard you mention anything about men.”

She felt relieved and said: “I don't study men.” He immediately responded, “That's convenient.” Nervously, she asked, “Why convenient?”

“It's convenient you don't talk about men,” he said, “Because when we reach out, when we tell our stories, when we share our shame experiences, we get the emotional s____ beat out of us.”

Brown was about to reply when he added, “Before you say anything about those dads, and those coaches, or about those bosses and mean bully friends, let me explain this to you. My wife and my three daughters, you just signed books for, they would rather see me die on top of my White Horse than see me fall off.” And then he just left.

Possible Preaching Angle:

This story reveals the stresses men face today—the pressure to stay on your “white horse,” to maintain your image of strength and invulnerability, rather than to trust in God’s grace and be vulnerable in Christian community.

Actor Matthew Perry, best known for playing Chandler Bing on the hit TV show Friends, recently died at the age of 54. Perry was cast in Friends, the sitcom that shot him to fame, at age 24. He starred as Chandler for the sitcom's entire 10-season run, a sarcastic yet affable fellow.

According to an obituary on NPR,

[B]ehind the scenes, Perry struggled with addiction. He opened up about his decades-long excessive use of alcohol and pills in his memoir published in 2022, Friends, Lovers and the Big Terrible Thing. In the book, which he dedicated to fellow sufferers of addiction, he detailed his painful struggle with drug use and his related health problems: He said he'd spent half of his life in treatment, detoxed an estimated 65 times and underwent 14 surgeries.

Perry estimated that he had spent more than $7 million over 15 rehab stays treating his addictions to drugs and alcohol. While on set, Perry tried to hide his addiction problem, which he said went hand-in-hand with the pressure to get laughs. Perry wrote in his memoir:

I felt like I was gonna die if the live audience didn't laugh, and that's not healthy for sure. But I could sometimes say a line and the audience wouldn't laugh and I would sweat and sometimes go into convulsions. If I didn't get the laugh I was supposed to get I would freak out. I felt that every single night. This pressure left me in a bad place. I also knew of the six people making that show, only one of them was sick.

George Orwell’s book 1984 is one of our society’s most frequently referenced illustrations of what life would be like under an authoritarian government. In the book, citizens of the fictional nation of Oceania are under constant government surveillance, including in their own homes. Devices called telescreens display propaganda and record peoples’ actions. This allows the government to monitor people even in what should be the most private place they know—their homes.

Historically in the US, the Fourth Amendment protects Americans from "unreasonable searches and seizures" by the government, acknowledging the "right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers and effects." It is a bedrock principle of the Bill of Rights.

But a new survey reveals that an astonishing number of Americans, particularly younger Americans, would be comfortable throwing this fundamental protection on the ash heap of history. The Cato Institute survey of Americans finds:

29% of Americans aged 18 to 29 respond affirmatively when asked, “Would you favor or oppose the government installing surveillance cameras in every household to reduce domestic violence, abuse, and other illegal activity?”

20% of Millennials between the ages of 30 and 44 also want everyone watched.

However, among Americans 45 and older, support for such totalitarian surveillance drops considerably to 6%.

From Ivy League campuses to the digital domains of Facebook, there is an Orwellian sense of perpetual emergency. There is an irrational fear that misinformation and hate speech will overwhelm society unless every utterance is subject to a censor’s scrutiny.

If these trends continue, the US may confront a very different privacy landscape in the future. It is possible that at some point, the American public will be open to extreme government overreach.

Possible Preaching Angle:

Christians might think that if we aren’t doing anything wrong what does it matter if we are being watched? But do you spank your children? Might some government official somewhere want to recast that as abuse? Do you teach your children that God made us male and female? Do you insist that marriage is between one man and one woman? What might some in the government think about that? To be constantly monitored is to be constantly assessed. And knowing, as we do, that our governments don’t measure right and wrong by God’s standards, we should fear the prospect.

Calls for a federal investigation by the Department of Justice (DOJ) are mounting after the latest discovery into the unjust death and burial of Dexter Wade of Jackson, Mississippi. Both attorney Ben Crump, representing the Wade family, as well as civil rights activist Rev. Al Sharpton, have publicly called for an investigation into Wade’s death.

In March, Wade’s mother Bettersten Wade called police for help, anxious about the whereabouts of her son, who’d gone missing. After repeatedly asking for updates, Bettersten was eventually notified in August--more than six months later. She was told that Dexter had been killed by a police cruiser while attempting to cross the highway. By the time Bettersten was notified of Dexter’s death, he’d already been buried anonymously in a plot of land owned by the county.

Initially, Bettersten says local officials explained the time gap by saying that Dexter had been found with no identifying information. After his body was exhumed, however, an independent pathologist confirmed in an autopsy that Dexter had been carrying a wallet that included the local address that he shared with his mother. These findings suggest that authorities knew where Dexter lived. Yet they made no attempt to contact her about her son, despite the fact that she’d already filed a missing person report.

Their attorney said, “The fact that Dexter had a state identification card and several other identifying items shows us that there was a concerted effort to keep the truth and manner of his death from his family. There is no excuse, not even incompetence, for not notifying a next of kin of an identified man’s death.”

Possible Preaching Angle:

Though it's important to differentiate between accidental death and murder, every human is made in the image of God, and therefore loss of life is inherently sacred and should not be minimized or concealed.

Do you have something to hide? A new survey finds that 82% of people admit to snooping through someone else’s devices. Moreover, the most likely Americans to go snooping is a person’s romantic partner or their ex.

According to a poll of more than 1,000 people, those who go snooping around may have a reason to always be so suspicious. A shocking 53% claim they’ve found something incriminating or concerning while going through someone else’s device. The most common thing people find is evidence that their significant other is cheating or flirting with other people. In fact, 70% say they’ve discovered evidence of digital flirting or in-person cheating after going through someone’s device.

Nearly nine in 10 snoopers go straight to their target’s messages, e-mails, or social media direct messages. Nearly half (44%) check out a person’s photos while snooping and 38% read through their target’s browser history. Interestingly, more than one in three have no regrets about snooping on another person.

Even though 82% of Americans admit to snooping through another person’s device, most are apparently expert digital spies. 81% claim they’ve never been caught while snooping through someone’s device.

Women are more likely to say they snoop (88%) in comparison to men (77%). Moreover, women were also less likely to regret snooping through someone’s device. Only one in 10 respondents say they’ve never looked through someone else’s device. For everyone else, 25% say they find “something significant most or every time” they go snooping around.

One day in 1995, a middle-aged man robbed two Pittsburgh banks in broad daylight. He didn’t wear a mask or any sort of disguise. And he smiled at surveillance cameras before walking out of each bank. Later that night, police arrested a surprised McArthur Wheeler. When they showed him the surveillance tapes, Wheeler stared in disbelief. “But I wore the juice,” he mumbled. Apparently, Wheeler thought that rubbing lemon juice on his skin would render him invisible to video cameras. After all, lemon juice is used as invisible ink so, as long as he didn’t come near a heat source, he should have been completely invisible.

Police concluded that Wheeler was not crazy or on drugs – just incredibly mistaken.

The saga caught the eye of the psychologist David Dunning at Cornell University, who enlisted his graduate student, Justin Kruger, to see what was going on. They reasoned that, while almost everyone holds favorable views of their abilities … some people mistakenly assess their abilities as being much higher than they actually are. One study found that 80 percent of drivers rate themselves as above average – a statistical impossibility. This “illusion of confidence” is now called the “Dunning-Kruger effect,” and describes the cognitive bias to inflate self-assessment.

Possible Preaching Angles:

1) Hiddenness; Omniscience of God – The belief that sins can be concealed is as old as the Garden of Eden. Adam and Eve mistakenly thought that they could hide from God. To their shame, they learned that no one can escape the all-seeing eyes of God. 2) Ego; False beliefs; Self-deception; Sowing and Reaping – An over-inflated opinion of oneself generally leads to a sudden reality check (1 Cor. 10:12; Gal. 6:7).