All of us, every day, all day long, are constructing a story. In this story that we construct, we are the hero and protagonist—sometimes rightly and sometimes wrongly.
Accordingly, we interpret the actions of others, weaving them into the story of our lives. If we are the protagonist rightly, then we approach those around us with understanding and wisdom. If we are usurpers, in actuality playing the role of villain, deadwood, or the role of an insignificant extra, while imagining we have the role of protagonist and hero in our own minds, then of necessity we have to twist and tangle our understanding of what those around us are doing. Imagine some Hollywood extra on a set who genuinely believed that she was the star, and the convoluted explanations she would have to go through to explain to herself why that other woman over there had all the good lines, and why all the cameras were pointed at her.
When we interpret the stories of our lives this way, we are either doing justice or injustice. We are cutting slack the right way or the wrong way. We tell the story rightly, or we mangle the story, getting everything wrong. How we interpret as we go, how we interpret the story of our respective lives, is a central part of our sanctification.
If a mother and daughter are doing dishes together, and the daughter clumsily drops one, and the mother says (or thinks), “How like you,” and then, just a few moments later, when the mother does the same thing, and says (or thinks), “How unlike me,” you can see the power of self-serving interpretation.
If a man thinks he is a courageous whistleblower when he is a treacherous friend, he has this problem. If a man thinks he is a sensitive listener when he is an adulterer in the making, he has this problem. If a man thinks he is a poet and a lonely soul when he is just a head case, then he has this problem. Let no man think of himself more highly than he ought to think. As the Scripture says.