The Struggle in the Lie
During a recent session, my client said to me in sheer frustration, “I want to trust God. I want to let Him in. I want to know that He’s safe. But I feel myself strong-arming Him because I don’t trust Him. I’ve asked him to come through for me so many times, and He hasn’t. I just don’t trust Him.” Then, she paused, and looked at me, and asked, “Connie, do you ever get scared? Are you ever scared to hear what God has to say?”
As I listened to her share, I felt so connected to her in her struggle, and I felt great respect for her brave honesty and vulnerability. Yet, as she asked that question, it struck right at my core. “Yes”, I replied empathetically and lovingly. “I feel scared a lot.”
As we continued the discussion, I quickly thought to myself, ‘God has such a way of getting our attention in the most powerful ways in the most unlikely situations.’ The honest truth was that I was struggling with something in my life that I didn’t realize until that very moment about which I didn’t really want to hear God’s truth.
I made a mental note that I needed to deal with that place in my heart, and I continued the session focused on helping my client restore her relationship with God. What a beautiful session it was. God really showed up for her in that session, as she was courageous and honest enough to get real and vulnerable.
Yet, as incredible as the session was, afterwards, I still had my own heart to deal with. I knew it couldn’t wait another minute, so I sat back down in my chair and I wrote, “God I’m scared. I want to draw near to you in this situation I’m in. I want to let you in this place, really let you in. I want to hear what you have to say to me. I want to let you take over, but I’m scared. I want what I want, and I’m scared that you’re not going to give me my picture in this. I’m scared that you’re going to withhold from me, and there will be nothing. I want to trust you in this God, but I don’t know how.”
Then it hit me…
That was the same lie Eve believed in the garden. The Lie that God is holding out on her – that He can’t be trusted. So she ate the apple. She took her story in her own hands because she believed that she couldn’t trust God with her story.
She was deceived. Just like us.
When we believe the lie that God can’t be trusted, that He isn’t for us, we, too, take our story in our own hands. When we believe the lie that God is holding out on us, we don’t want the story He is writing for us.
We live in fear, and we take control. We believe we can write a better story. And there is separation in our relationship with Him. It is there that we strong-arm God. And there, we struggle as we attempt to redeem a much smaller story for ourselves.
We are deceived by the one who comes to steal, kill, and destroy us and the life God intended for us. We are stolen from because we don’t really know who God is, and we don’t really know who we are in Him.
When we believe a lie about God, we are afraid of what He’s going to do or that He’s not going to come through for us. We fear that if we let Him in fully, He’ll ask something of us that we don’t want to do or feel like we can’t do. Or that we will be left without, let down, and disappointed.
There in my office, in that moment of clarity, I was flooded with truth and grace. Living in our smaller story feels familiar. Staying in our protection and out of vulnerability feels safe. But we shut God out. We are afraid of ourselves, our pain, our need, our desire, and we are mostly afraid of God. So we let our fear perpetuate the lie and further our struggle.
I sat still for a minute more, and I quieted my heart. I felt His merciful love and I knew. It’s okay to be scared. It’s okay to wrestle with God about my picture, about the story I desire so deeply in my heart. It’s okay to tell Him that I’m afraid, and that I don’t know how to trust Him. It’s okay to struggle with my unbelief. But it’s no longer okay for me to not tell Him so.
And then, I remembered the Bible story in Luke 9, where a Father had struggled to believe that His son, who had been mute from birth, could really be healed by Jesus. Holding onto the truth of God’s word in that moment, I surrendered my current struggle to God, and I said, “Okay, God, take it. I don’t want what is not of you. I want your best. Remind me that you are for me and show me how you are loving me in this. Lord, I believe. Help my unbelief. I trust you. Help me trust you where I don’t.”
There, in that quiet moment, the power of the lie was broken. My strong-arming ceased, and my struggle was over.