No one intended to lie to me. No one set out to hurt me. No one ever dreamed that I would grow up and go to seminary (and counseling) only to find out that I had been believing certain lies most of my life. I would have never admitted to believing these things, because at face value they sound ridiculous. They sound like no-brainers. If you had said it to me, I would’ve said no, duh!
But when you have a moment of grief and uncertainty like I did, I had to really dig deep into the recesses of my mind and heart to pinpoint these lies. These lies were skewing my view of God. They were giving me feelings of abandonment, doubt, and pain, because unbeknownst to me, my view of God had been influenced by these lies. And really I never had to face up to these lies until I was pushed to my breaking point. I suddenly had no choice but to face and call out these lies:
Lie #1 If I am a “good girl” and do good things, God will do good things for me and give me what I want.
Lie #2 God is like a vending machine. I put in my good works, and He sends out a corresponding good thing.
Lie #3 Delight yourself in the Lord or rather do everything His way, and He will give you what you want.
Lie #4 God giving anything less than marriage and children isn’t a gift at all but a curse.
Lie #5 I’m not allowed to express my hurt, questions, doubts, fears, or whys to God.
Lies. Lies that have found deep roots in my heart and soul. And now that I know that they are lies, I am having to undo years of emotional and mental damage they caused. I don’t think the church ever intended to hurt me in this way. I think they had very good intentions, but what they didn’t equip me with was the tools to study the Bible and find truth based on Scripture.
Some of these lies probably sound preposterous, and I know what you’re thinking. There’s no way anyone ever said that. They might not have said that in so many words, but it was what I heard and hid in my heart. But I’m done with the lies. They have to go. LIes will only sabotage my relationship and walk with God. I want all of Him. And I want to replace lies with truth.
You’ll have to wait until next week for those. In the meantime, each weekend I am going to take a break from this type of post to share a book and a song that have been instrumental in this season. I am praying that just one person is impacted by this road God has walked me down, but even if not, even if this is just for me, it will all be worth it.
So I have to ask. What lies have you believed? Even if they sound crazy, I want you to write them down and think about it. We have to identify the lies if we are ever going to replace them with truth. It’s time to fight back.
♥︎Jenna
This blog post is a part of a series called Rediscovering God for the Write31Days challenge to write every day in October. You can find links to all posts in my series here. If you want to know more about the Write31Days challenge, you can find out more at www.write31days.com.