How much time, how much joy, how much life do we lose while trapped in defeat? I can’t help but cringe thinking about how much of those I lost just this weekend. Not to mention last week, the past month, or the past year.
Trapped in fear.
Frustrated with people who let me down.
Disappointed in myself for letting others down.
Overwhelmed by things that went wrong.
Believing that somehow I should’ve been able to control all of those things.
Unable to engage in what was before me.
Angry at the weight of responsibility, the perceived burden of needs, and lack of desire.
Paralyzed by the combination of it all.
How many of my days will I spend like this?
Even in the moment, I know what I’m losing. But I still give in to my own stubbornness and unbelief, allowing the things that I want the most to slip through my lazy fingers into a hole of bitterness, hopelessness, judgement, and numbness.
I choose, in the moment, to let those things take over. Over and over and over again.
It happens so regularly that it’s predictable. The moment I decide to do good, sin is there to trip me up. I truly delight in God’s commands, but it’s pretty obvious that not all of me joins in that delight. Parts of me covertly rebel, and just when I least expect it, they take charge. I’ve tried everything and nothing helps. I’m at the end of my rope. – Romans 7:21-24a MSG
And over and over and over again, when I look back, I wish I’d chosen to fight. Chosen to look all that ugliness in the face and say, “NO.”
No you can’t have my time.
No you can’t have my joy.
No you can’t have my life.
But I can’t. The lies scream louder than the truth.
I can’t fight this. I’m not worthy. I’m not enough. I don’t deserve good things. I can’t fix things. I can’t make a difference. I only make things worse. I’m not lovable.
The scary thing about lies is that one lie leads to the next, and then the next, and then the next. There’s no end.
Until there is truth. The only thing that can dispel lies is truth.
But we have to be brave enough. Brave enough to hear truth. To listen to truth. To speak truth. To believe truth. To act on truth.
It’s not our responsibility to prove all of the lies wrong. It’s not up to us to fix everything so the lies have no validation.
But it is our responsibility to seek out the truth and declare it over our lives.
Is there no one who can do anything for me? Isn’t that the real question? The answer, thank God, is that Jesus Christ can and does. He acted to set things right in this life of contradictions where I want to serve God with all my heart and mind, but am pulled by the influence of sin to do something totally different. – Romans 7:24b-25 MSG
Truth reminds us first and foremost, that this is not about us. Our biggest pitfall – the thing that gets us into this mess, and that keeps us there – is in making everything about us. I and me. The two people I love the most. That I am most concerned about. Almost all the lies I fall into are associated with I and me. And then I rely on I and me to fix things for I and me.
Those who think they can do it on their own end up obsessed with measuring their own moral muscle but never get around to exercising it in real life. Those who trust God’s action in them find that God’s Spirit is in them—living and breathing God! Obsession with self in these matters is a dead end; attention to God leads us out into the open, into a spacious, free life. Focusing on the self is the opposite of focusing on God. Anyone completely absorbed in self ignores God, ends up thinking more about self than God. That person ignores who God is and what he is doing. And God isn’t pleased at being ignored. – Romans 8:5-8 MSG
We have to get off eyes off of ourselves and onto Christ. “Fixing our eyes” doesn’t mean looking back, looking around, looking elsewhere. It’s looking at Him. Always, forever, no matter what. Our eyes don’t move, even if everything else does. He’s the Truth that will dispel every lie – if we would only keep our eyes on Him!
When we get our eyes off of us and onto Christ, He can speak the truth into our lives. The truth that…
He gave his life for us, because we were worth it to him. (John 3:16)
He gave us his righteousness, so that in him we’d be enough. (2 Cor 5:21)
He’s forgiven us everything, he’s extended abundant grace to us. (Psa 103:11-12)
He hears our cry and saves us. (Psalm 145:19)
He strengthens us. (Isa 41:10)
He has compassion on us. (Lam 3:32)
He is with us, the all-powerful, all-knowing, always-everywhere God. (Isa 41:10)
He collects our tears and knows the number of hairs on our heads. (Psa 56:8; Luke 12:7)
He comforts us when we are anxious and have many cares. (Psa 94:19)
He already knows everything, and he directs us accordingly. (Prov 3:5-6)
He makes ways in the wilderness and rivers in the desert. (Isa 43:19)
He can do more than we can imagine. (Eph 3:20-21)
When we look to Christ, truth is literally endless. Truth is always there, has always been there, and always will be there. There is enough truth to overcome every lie we will ever encounter.
But do we believe the truth? Do we believe that the truth has the power to win over our defeat?
To be honest, a lot of the time, I don’t. And why don’t we believe?
We put God in a box. We make him small. Very small.
We put limits on what he can do.
We forget what he’s already done.
We think that he’s forsaken us.
That he doesn’t really care.
That he’s not really sovereign.
That our lives have just been set in motion for us to go along as we are, with no interference from God.
We move from believing lies about ourselves to believing lies about God. Based on what we know, on what we can understand, on what we can see, on how we feel, on how the world operates. We forget that the world we live in now really is backwards and our kingdom home has always had it right, and always will. We forget that God, in His grace and love, has asked us to trust Him. He has asked us not to lean on our understanding, but to acknowledge, to give right of way, to Him.
Even Jesus didn’t rely on himself for answers, but wholly trusted His Father. When Satan took him to the top of the temple and told him to prove who he was by throwing himself off the building and commanding his angels to catch him, he certainly could have. It doesn’t even really seem like there would’ve been much harm in that, that it would’ve been a bad thing. But he didn’t give in to the devil’s schemes. And he didn’t make up his own way to fight him. He simply said “It is written…” God has said. And Satan left.
God has said.
So in those places when we are faced with fear, anxiety, inadequacy, anger, unforgiveness, worthlessness, frustration, a need for more, a need to control, need to be recognized, a need for power or importance, a need for things to be fixed, to be better, to be more, to be different…
What has God said?
Will we trust him?
Will we declare the truth? About ourselves? About our situations? About God?
And will we allow acting on that truth to be our only course of action?
For the word of the Lord is right and true; he is faithful in all he does. – Psalm 33:4 NIV
