"Who Told You That?!" (plus what makes up the 'best' lies)
I have a coach who regularly asks me this question when he hears something not quite right in my thinking. He helps me see when my view of something in my life is not God's perspective. I hear him in my head sometimes saying, "Who told you that?"
Sometimes it is a literal person who said something to me, but more often it is a skewed version of what actually happened.
Eve had the same problem. God told her and Adam not to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. And they were doing good for who knows how long until the devil came and twisted what God said. He morphed it into a question of God's character, "Did God really say you couldn't eat of any tree in the garden?"
Then Eve has her go at skewing the truth. She says, “We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden. But God told us, ‘You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden. You must not even touch it, or you will die.’"
Where did the "you must not even touch it" part come from?
The old snake goes on by casting shade on God's character as if He was hiding something good from Adam and Eve. He says, “You will not die. God knows that if you eat the fruit from that tree, you will learn about good and evil, and you will be like God!” like God didn't want them to be knowledgeable like Him, and He was withholding the wisdom that would come from eating that fruit.
We do the same things!
We add to what was said - like Eve did- "We shouldn't even touch it".
Or we assign motive like the devil who offered his idea of why God didn't want them to eat from that tree.
So, to connect well with what God has for us we need to:
1) Listen to what He actually says and not morph it into anything more or less.
2) Trust that He always has good in store for us.
Can I be honest? This is REALLY hard to do!
#1 is hard because we are human and it is not always clear what God is truly saying. We are prone to edit. We can easily shift what He is saying to something not quite true.
Here are some examples:
God is saying, "You can do this." I hear, "Someday you will have what it takes." Can you see the lie in there? It's subtle but still can be effective in holding me back.
God says, "I'm guiding you one step at a time." I think, "I'm not sure where I'm going so I best hold back for now." In this one, I am waiting for something "amazing" to show itself and then I will start taking steps.
God shows me, "You need to be patient and trust." I feel, "This is taking too long, I must have messed up so badly that now 'it' won't work."
Lies are like that. The best ones are not usually obvious, just a morph of truth that is enough to get you off track or even really mess you up. "Good" lies are like poison, they seem to taste good, but there is enough untruth in there to kill you. Kill your hope, wipe out your connection with God or with others, ruin your self-esteem.
Poison seeps in when we don't filter out the untruth.
#2 is hard because we can't always see that God has good in store for us and truthfully sometimes we won't see it on this side of eternity. Tragedies happen. There are difficult twists in our lives that sometimes don't resolve nicely here on earth, BUT we CAN trust Him.
It's not always about resolving situations here on earth, but it is ALWAYS about being able to settle into His place of peace and refuge no matter what is swirling around us.
Lies here sound like:
"If God can heal me, or my loved one, and doesn't I must be doing something wrong." You can have a chat with Job or Paul about that! I'm not a fan of pain and don't have a quippy answer for "why" questions but I do know that His ways are higher than ours and when we are faithful to Him even in the midst of difficulty it is a sacrifice of praise that truly honors Him. When we praise Him when every thing is going great, that is lovely, but hardly a sacrifice. What in your life can you offer to Him without understanding or resolution?
"If God really loved me ____________ would not have happened." When sin entered the world, yucky stuff came with it. Jesus said, "In this world you will have troubles, but take heart I have overcome the world." Similar to the first lie, this one hurts and is difficult. Why doesn't God intervene and make sure 'stuff' doesn't happen to His own. God is okay with asking Him questions, just read the Psalms, but in the end we will be best served not by asking "Why?" questions but by asking "How?" or "What?" ones. "How are You meeting me here in the middle?", "What do You want to show me in this?"
Back to our original thought. "Who told you that?"
Ask yourself where you are getting the thoughts that are getting the most attention in your head. Is what you are listening to most what God is saying to you or about you?
Don't let a little poison sneak in there and kill you!
(We talk about how to deal with lies in our Soul Care Retreat. Maybe you could use a guided devotional experience? What would be worth to you to find freedom from that recurring talk track in your head?)