Escaping, denying or avoiding difficult situations keeps us from growing to maturity, because facing challenges honestly, head-on, is the way we grow up. When we are shielded from those opportunities or avoid them through irresponsibility or addiction, like the moth in the cocoon, we never emerge a butterfly.
Denying reality is just that – denial. And denial is a lie. When the door is opened to a lying spirit (even in the form of not accepting a difficult reality), we are opening the door to delusions of all kinds.
Taking about the “falling away” in the end times, Paul said, “…because they did not receive the love of the truth, that they might be saved. And for this reason God will send them strong delusion, that they should believe the lie” (II Thessalonians 2:10-11). A love for the truth, even when it is difficult, is necessary to avoid deception and delusion.