Last Saturday night I got a very interesting opportunity.  A group of students from my college drove forty minutes to downtown Aberdeen, South Dakota, to do Red Box street evangelism; and I joined them.  Now, anyone who knows me well knows that when I have something important to say, I am far more comfortable writing than I am speaking.  Words flow naturally onto paper for me, but sometimes when I stand up to speak before a crowd, my mind goes completely blank.  Nevertheless, I was encouraged to climb up on the red-painted box, dubbed “Air Time,” and share my testimony.  I raised my eyebrows and replied that I had no idea what I would say, but I clambered up on that box anyway.  As I stood on that box, feeling very conspicuous beneath the light of the streetlamp on the corner, God put words in my heart, words about my search for “something more” in life that led me straight into His arms.  I and the other students got a chance to minister to people and proclaim the love of Jesus to the late-night crowds flocking to the coffee house, bars, and other, less savory businesses lining the street.

“Jesus, I long to be holy
Jesus, I long to be real
In a world of broken people
So many need to be healed”

I now have to tell you that I am not overly zealous about street evangelism.  My tolerance for intoxicated people is not particularly high, I admit.  Over the last few weeks, though, the Lord has been stirring up my heart.  At first I resisted, telling God that children and writing are my “things” – street evangelism is not my “thing.”  But then the Lord asked me a question:

‘Can the world afford for you to have a “thing”?’

My breath caught in my throat and I fell to my knees.  In Christian church culture we tend to get caught up in our “things,” which we like to label as “callings” (because it sounds churchier).  Before anyone takes offense, I totally believe the Lord calls people; every single person on this earth has a destiny and a purpose.  The problem with these so-called “callings” – these things – is that we sometimes use them as an excuse to not reach out to all those around us.  Paul “made himself a slave to everyone, to win as many as possible” and “[became] all things to all people so that by all possible means [he] might save some.”  He did this “for the sake of the gospel” (1 Corinthians 9:19, 22-23).  I want this to be my attitude; I want to reach outside my comfort zone and outside the realm of my gifts to reach people in all different kinds of situations.  I don’t want to find myself in a place where I can’t share Jesus with someone because his or her lifestyle and situation is uncomfortable to me.

“Purify my hands to hold them
Purify my heart to burn with devotion
For You, Lord Jesus, for You”

Jesus’ only “thing” is loving people, and He wants to know if we will make our “things” His thing.  Will our hearts break for what breaks His heart?  Do our hearts break for the lost and hopeless?  It is beautiful to operate in our God-given talents, but we are called to reach beyond the mere extent of our gifts, and I will tell you why:

“For Christ’s love compels us, because we are convinced that one died for all, and therefore all died.  And he died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for him who died for them and was raised again.” (2 Corinthians 5:14-15)

The world is lost and broken in so many ways; everyday people lead lives of hopelessness, perishing in the darkness.  To remain in safety and comfort is our human inclination; but we Christ-followers are compelled by the lavish love of Christ to expand our reach, bringing light into every dark place.

“I’m not ashamed of Jesus
My Lord my Lover my Friend
The power to cleanse and redeem us
Is in the blood of the Lamb”

The truth is that we can all reach out fearlessly and unashamedly.  The Lord told me that if I was not ashamed of Him, I should quit acting as though I were.  The time has come for me to reach outside of my comfort zones, outside of my “thing,” to go forth into the world.  Maybe it is time for you to do the same.  Jesus is calling out to His Bride, “Spread your wings and fly free for all to see; nothing holds you back, Beloved.”

“Oh how the mighty have fallen
Buried in their filthy rags
Father please turn from your anger
My lips will boast of your ways
Cause it’s all in the blood of the savior
It’s all in the love that you have for Your Son
And I believe in Jesus; I believe”
(Lyrics from Jason Upton’s “Not Ashamed”)

I am learning how to live a life free from fear of man; my fear is for my God and Him alone.  The prayer of my heart is that I will jump at every opportunity to share His love with a world that is bound in darkness.  Everywhere I go my lips will boast of His ways.  Nothing can hold me back, for I am compelled by a relentless Love.

(Check out Jason Upton’s song “Not Ashamed”:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S2z-XqiK28c)

The thing I love most about my relationship with God is that there is always more to know.  I could live my entire life, learning more about Him every single day, and I would still never know Him fully.

Over the past couple months I have fallen more in love with God’s power.  His love, His grace, His comfort, and even His majesty are things I have already fallen in love with, but I suddenly find myself totally taken aback by His raw, unadulterated power.  To merely consider it makes me tremble with a strange mix of elation and sheer terror.  I saw the ocean and thought it had a wild but enticing power; then I thought how much more so that must be true of its Creator.  I have seen roaring waterfalls and thought them powerful until I considered that He who made them must be powerful beyond my wildest imaginings.

I love to talk about the love of God, about how Jesus sacrificed Himself out of pure love for each and every person on this planet.  Sometimes, however, we think of Jesus or even of Christianity as meek, mild, humble, and full of love and forgiveness.  All those things are true, but there is a whole other side to it that we tend to set aside because it is just too overwhelming to consider: the matchless power of the King of kings.

‘“Behold, I am coming soon!  My reward is with me, and I will give to everyone according to what he has done.  I am the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last, the Beginning and the End.”  (Revelation 22:12-13)

In this statement, Jesus is not describing Himself as someone who is meek and mild.  He is not saying that he is coming like one who has a bag of candy and passes it out to the “good” kids and withholds it from the “bad” ones.  No, He is describing Himself as a Warrior-King coming to pass judgment on all things – freedom for some and a fate worse than death for others.  He will come one day “in a cloud with great power and glory” (Luke 21:27).  He was given “the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father” (Philippians 2:9-11).  That is power uncontainable and unfathomable.  That is my Jesus.

Someone once told me that I was a prayer warrior.  At the time, I laughed.  And up until a couple weeks ago, I still laughed.  You see, in my mind I had a definition of what a prayer warrior was.  A prayer warrior is one of those people who pray out loud really well, whose words always come out right, who always says just the right thing, and who makes prayers sound beautiful, almost like music.  Or so I thought.

My definition of a prayer warrior was partially correct: there are people who use the powerful tool of prayer in that way.  I know a lovely young lady who prays like that; every time I hear her pray, I feel as though I am drawn right into the loving heart of God.  To a degree we all need to pray like that, but she does have a special gift of prayer.  But, as I said, my definition was only partially correct, or rather, only partially complete.

The problem with my definition was that it incapacitated me.  When I pray out loud in front of a group of people, sometimes my mind goes completely blank, which often doesn’t allow the passion and sincerity in my heart a chance to be released fully.  (It is an area I am still working on with God.  Someday every word He puts in my heart is going to make its way into the world.)  I am more of a writer than a speaker; when there is something important to be said, I like to have time to collect my thoughts fully and turn them into concise, poignant statements before I offer them to others.  That is just part of the way God wired me, and it is a great thing; it makes me a wonderful writer.  However, because of that, I couldn’t possibly imagine how I could be a “prayer warrior.”

Don’t get me wrong – I have always believed that prayer is a powerful and effective tool of faith, and I love to write out prayers during my journaling time.  I just never thought of myself as being a capable prayer warrior, so I excluded myself from that seemingly lofty category by giving it too restricted a definition.  In short, I was allowing a lie to stop me from efficiently wielding the power given to me.  After all, a sword in the hands of someone who can’t use it won’t make much of a difference.

Yet, if you give a sword to someone who knows how it is used, to a warrior, it becomes a mighty weapon, an extension and increase of strength.  By denying that I was a “prayer warrior,” I was simply denying myself the strength given to me by the King of kings.  A warrior without a weapon is as ineffective as a sword in the hands of he who cannot wield it.  Whether I like it or not, I am a warrior.

“For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.”  (Ephesians 6:12)

As sons and daughters of the Lord of Hosts, we have warrior status.  We have been rescued from the dominion of darkness and brought into the Kingdom of light by the blood of Christ (Colossians 1:13-14), and we need to begin taking our role as warriors and guardians of the faith seriously.

“Guard the good deposit that was entrusted to you – guard it with the help of the Holy Spirit that lives in us.”  (2 Timothy 1:14)

Because I am a warrior, I must learn how to use this weapon of prayer.  Having been covered by the righteousness of Jesus Christ, my prayers “are powerful and effective” (James 5:16).  The Lord has been encouraging me to begin setting aside specific time to pray for friends, for family, and for any other thing that He brings to my attention; and then to sit back and watch as it allows chain reactions of His power to be set off in my life and the lives of those around me.  We are engaged in all-out warfare with the powers of evil, and we cannot continue to fight weaponless.

“For though we live in the world, we do not wage war as the world does.  The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world.  On the contrary, they have the divine power to demolish strongholds.  We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.”  (2 Corinthians 10:3-5)

So take heart and take up your weapon, prayer warrior.

On August 24, I will begin my freshman year at Trinity Bible College in North Dakota.  That is a deceptively simple statement, because the way I came to be saying that was not so simple.

I love my family, and I love being at home.  Even my own brother calls me a “homebody.”  I was homeschooled my entire life, and have never, ever been in a classroom or a “regular” school as a student.  (And no, I do not believe that I have missed out on any important life experience.)  If I ever got sassy or lackadaisical about doing my homework, my parents would threaten to send me to public school, at which I would burst into tears and beg not to be sent to school.  (That was the worst punishment I could imagine receiving.)

Being so great a “homebody,” then, the idea of doing college via correspondence was very attractive.  I’d heard of a wonderful online program through Liberty University in Virginia.  I wouldn’t need to leave my missionary family in Kenya to go to some college in some place in the United States where I had never been.  Instead, I could stay home and take care of my baby sister and my Yorkie, spending my free hours cooking and caring for my family.  I am already very good at learning at home – I always get good grades and am quite capable of managing my own time in order to accomplish whatever I need to do.  It sounded so safe and so certain; it sounded familiar….So that was what I should do, right?

I spent months praying about it but had received no “thus sayeth the Lord.”  I had no peace about my “decision,” and that really bothered me.  Something wasn’t right, but how could that be, when the situation seemed like it would be so perfect?  I thought that I should have felt peace, and that also bothered me.  To everyone who asked, I replied that I would be doing college via correspondence, etc.  But I started to really cry out to God.  Was this what He had for me?  Would I eventually feel peace or even a scrap of joy?  There is nothing wrong with doing college via correspondence, and there is nothing wrong with Liberty University.  We tend to think that, in any given situation, there must be one “right” decision and one “wrong” decision.  In some cases though, there isn’t really a “wrong” decision, but there is a best decision.  That was my problem: none of my options were wrong in and of themselves, but I didn’t just want something that was fine or even merely good – I deeply desire God’s very best in every aspect of my life.

“You’ve been too long upon this mountain
It’s time you journey to the sea
Sometimes to trust in your false comfort
Is easier than trusting me 
Some men only believe in what their eyes can see
Some men only believe in what their minds conceive”

Still I heard nothing.  But there was a reason I didn’t hear anything: I wasn’t ready.  For lack of another answer (answers are hard to come by when we don’t really want to listen to them), I was still telling people that I would be doing correspondence college.  In fact, I was emailing back and forth with a friend of mine and said that I would be doing online college courses, but the very next day everything changed.

Through a strangely indirect and likely unrepeatable online search, Mom found the Trinity web page (we weren’t even looking for schools).  She got really excited and said, “Sabra, I think this school would be perfect for you!”

My next problem was that I really didn’t want to leave my home and family (I am a homebody, remember).  This meant that I didn’t really want to hear that God had a different idea.  But a life of sweet surrender to my King is the life I want to live, and the same all-loving, all-knowing Father who literally brought me to my knees six years ago was waiting to bring me to my knees once again, though this time in a spiritual sense.  This time it happened to me as I was sitting in my bed early one morning journaling.  God was pretty clear.  He asked me if I wanted His best.  I was like, “Uh, yeah.”  That’s what I had been waiting for, wasn’t it?  But I should have

guessed what was coming next.  He asked me if I wanted to do what He was doing or do what was safe.

Wow.  Ouch.  Was I going to cling to the familiar or step out into the unknown, trusting that He will take me all the way?  Do I want to be (and be known as) the “eminently safe” girl, or do I want to grab hold of my freedom in Christ and run with it, being known for a bold faith?  I have to say, the thought of going to Trinity both excites and terrifies me, but God has really opened up my eyes on this matter.  As long as I am caught up in trying to be “safe,” I am never going to be able to trust God fully or be as free as He wants me to be.  A life fully lived for my King is going to have an element of risk and danger and passion, and that is part of the beauty of the journey.

“But believing’s like conceiving
This child that we’re receiving
A gift beyond our reason
Its more of what we need, and less of what we know
It calls not to our mind, but cries out to our soul”

The lyrics from Jason Upton’s “Burning in the Sky” really struck me.  Like the Israelites on Mount Sinai, there was nothing wrong with my “mountain” – God had been providing for me in the place I was at.  But, just as He wanted the Israelites to do, He wanted me to journey into my promised land, into a greater abundance.  God is indeed giving me more of what I need and less of what I know, and while my mind often protests, the rightness of it resonates in my spirit.

Trinity is a small school in a middle-of-nowhere town in North Dakota called Ellendale, which means that I will have the opportunity to know and be known rather than just be another member of a crowd.  (North Dakota may sound random, but my dad’s parents live only a few hours’ drive from the Trinity campus.)  I will be doing a double major to receive my Bachelor of Arts in Biblical Studies and my Bachelor of Science in Elementary Education, all the while getting to make new friends who are as passionate about Jesus as I am.  I am really going to miss my family (reality still hasn’t fully set in), yet this choice feels so right.  I won’t go into all my reasons as to why I made the decision to go to Trinity, but topping my list is that I know that I know – beyond a shadow of a doubt – that this is what God has for me.  So many things could have prevented me from attending this college, not the least of which were Trinity’s policy of accepting no student under 17 and my own late discovery of the fact that Trinity even exists.  (I don’t recommend choosing a college less than six months before you plan to attend it.)  But God knew exactly what would be best for me, and He worked everything out from there – no matter what it looked like to the rest of the world.  As I made my decision and am preparing to leave for school, God keeps bringing this one Scripture passage to my mind:

“Behold, I am doing a new thing!  Do you not perceive it?  I am making a way in the desert and streams in the wasteland.”  (Isaiah 43:19)

Some people were surprised that I “suddenly” decided to go to Trinity, but nothing is sudden to God – He’s had this planned for a long, long time, and His plans are always good.  Though the massive amount of change this decision will bring, makes me a bit nervous, I am also very excited.  I have “butterflies” in my tummy – in a good way.  I have no idea what the next four years of my life will hold, but I know that they are going to be amazing.

You know how sometimes someone tells you to do something and you say, “Why?” and they reply, “Because I said so”?  And do you know how annoying that can be?  Oh, it used to drive me nuts when I was little!  I wanted to know why I should do the thing that I was being told to do so that I could decide whether or not to do it – whether it was worth my time or not.  (The questioning was instinctual when I was small.  The reason I asked “why” only recently occurred to me.)

We often question those who are in authority because we think we might know better than they do.  Or we do it because we think that our personal time is so valuable that it we shouldn’t waste it doing something that doesn’t seem to have a “point.”  Honestly though, I have yet to see an action without purpose or a thing without a point.  I have not seen such things because they do not exist.  The truth is that everything – every person, every word, every action, every part of creation – has a purpose and a “point.”  The real problem comes when we question orders by asking what the “point” is.  If the point isn’t satisfactory to us, we refuse to obey the directive by deeming it “pointless.”  Now there is certainly a time and a place to ask questions, and there is even a time and a place to ask “why,” both to God and to others in authority, but please understand the heart of what I am saying.  We tend to use the “why” question in an attempt to get out of doing whatever we were told to do.  In fact, when we question the commands we are given, we are often already implying that we do not think we should have to do whatever it is that we were told to do.  The saddest thing to me is that we question God in this way all the time.

Often times God will prompt me – quite ardently – to do something that I don’t want to do.  I will then ask Him, “Why, God?”  But I will tell you what God told me one time: “Because I said so.”  I was like, “Wow.  Um, okay, I guess.”  Later, after I had done it (I don’t even recall what it was), God told me more about this response.  God revealed to me, very lovingly, that He wanted me to learn how to do things not because I could see how they would “make a difference” but simply because He told me to and I trusted Him.  That was pretty serious for me.  He wanted me to obey because I knew that His plans for me and those around me, though I may not understand them, are the very best in every way.  As brothers and sisters in Christ, then, let us learn how to obey simply because God said so, resting in the fact that He knows exactly what He is doing, even when we do not.

Sometimes the devotional entry I read before I begin my day doesn’t just give general true principles – sometimes it speaks exactly to my situation.  Sometimes when fear and sorrow are crushing my heart as I write in my journal, the “random” verse at the bottom of each page happens to be not random at all.  Sometimes when I am in public, a song will start playing over the speakers and it will be precisely what I need at that very moment.  Sometimes when my dreams feel insignificant or unattainable, someone “randomly” bolsters my dreams with timely words.  Sometimes when I feel frustrated at the way people act and react, I will suddenly have a deep revelation about their heart that makes me understand and fills me with a fresh love and compassion for them.  Sometimes when my life feels crazy and all-consuming, I have a chance to drive through mountains, swim in oceans, or look down at the world from an airplane, and those vast displays of God’s majesty put everything back into perspective.  Sometimes when I am minding my own business, living my own life, I have a word for someone else – sometimes it is literally one single word, but it will make them burst into tears and hug me.  Sometimes these things happen every single day.

Coincidence?  Some might think so, but I think not.  In fact, I know not.  How do I know?  Because I serve the Living God, and He speaks.  His words of conviction, of love, of hope, of peace are always timely.  And yes – He always acts right on time, too.  We like to think that our idea of timing is much better than God’s.  We often say to Him, just as Frodo said to Gandalf, “You’re late.”  How does God respond to that?  Well, to put a little twist on the original Lord of the Rings quote, He says, “I am never late.  Nor am I early.  I always arrive precisely when I mean to.”  Who better to decide timing than the One who is the timeless Creator of time, upon whom time has no hold?  God’s always got us covered.  And even more beautiful than the perfect timing of God’s words is that He speaks to each and every one of His children, no exceptions.

It’s true; I can’t deny it.  I am a brush-aholic.  Every time I see my hairbrush, I feel this urge, this temptation to brush my hair.  I shouldn’t do it, I know, but I still do – in a nearly mindless fashion.  Sometimes I won’t even be fully aware of what I’ve done until I am already putting my hairbrush down.  Then comes that sinking feeling, because I know what results from this bad brushing habit.  First I end up with that charming “triangle head” look.  And, because that fluffy style impedes my vision, I pull it back with clips, which gives it that equally charming cocker spaniel-esque look.

It started years ago.  From the time I was little, I had super fine, stick-straight hair, which I kept until I was about thirteen.  But then it got thicker and wavier and thicker and wavier until it finally decided to do whatever it wanted – and apparently it wanted to curl.  By that time, I treated brushing my hair much the same way as I did brushing my teeth – it was a task that needed to be done in a habitual and zealous manner.  Alas, was there ever to be any hope for my hair?  I usually didn’t intend to brush it; it just…happened.  Paul really got it right:

“I do not understand what I do.  For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do.”  (Romans 7:15)

But no more.  I have decided to quit brushing my hair for my own good.  I marched up to the bathroom mirror, looked my reflection right in the eye, and said, “I do not have straight hair.”  So I am going to stop treating my hair like it’s straight.  Curly hair does not deserve to be subjected to the abuse of multiple daily brushings.

Scripture tells us to resist temptation and it will flee from us.  Well, I have been resisting my temptation for nearly five days now.  However, in the best interest of my hair, I have decided to give the temptation a head-start in fleeing.  My hairbrush has received the death sentence; it is going to the trash can.  There shall be no mournful renditions of “O Where is My Hairbrush?”; I know exactly where my hairbrush went, and I say good riddance!  Free the curls!

…Ah, the glorious sound of silence.  Too bad it’s been such a long time since I heard it.

My family moved back to Michigan in June after spending nearly four years in Africa as missionaries.  As wonderful and exciting as life is for us right now, the logistics of moving are usually not very logistical at all.  Moving is just crazy no matter which way you cut it.

Thankfully, we have an amazing extended family.  We have been camping out – the five of us, our two dogs (does that make seven of us?), and all our stuff – at my grandparents’ house for the past month and a half.  (They have been so long-suffering!  Thanks, Grandpa and Grandma!)  We’re still waiting to close on our condo (which will probably happen mid-August).  In the meantime, however, I have found that when living in a three-bedroom, one-and-a-half bathroom house with eight people, five dogs, two gerbils (Aviya calls them “gerbas”), two frogs, and a fish, there is never a dull moment.

First of all, let’s just start with the number of bathrooms per quantity of people.  Considering that two of the people in this house are convinced that they must shower at least twice a day for personal cleanliness, you practically have to take numbers to decide who gets the next turn.  (And no one really wants to use the “back bathroom,” the four-foot-by-four-foot space where the gerbil cage has taken up residence for the summer.)

Secondly, you may have noticed that there are only three bedrooms.  My parents and baby sister are sharing one room, and Sam and I each got a couch.  (Mine is in the living room; Sam’s is in the unfinished basement.)

Fast Fact!  One generally finds that couches are much less comfortable than they thought after sleeping on them for six weeks.

The good news is that, because I am so easily accessible these days (living room = zero privacy), I have been able to become my family’s very own version of Google in the late hours of the night:

“Sabra, has the dishwasher been run?”

“Sabra, where are my two little exercise balls?”

“Sabra, will you unlock the door in the morning?”

“Sabra, where is my book?”

“Sabra, where is my dog?”

“Sabra, when you are quoting something that ends with a semicolon, where do you put the punctuation?”

“Sabra, how do you spell ‘Cincinnati’?”

If not for me, how else would all these questions get answered?

Now let me tell you about a third thing.  There are only eight people in the house, but there are six toddlers.  How is that, you wonder?  I’ll give you a hint – five of them have four legs.  Anyone who has dogs will understand what I’m talking about, and anyone who doesn’t – well, I’ve already given it away, haven’t I?

Fast Fact! Dogs are wonderful creatures, but they are like small children who never grow up…ever.

A quick look at the last thirty minutes of my life will bear evidence to this fact….

I was trying to feed our two dogs lunch (they always eat at 2 p.m. and won’t let us forget it), and my grandparents’ littlest dog, Lily, (admittedly still a puppy) was trying to help herself to the food, which made our older dogs snarl at her pesky antics.  Amidst the frantic barking and skittering around of my grandparents’ other dog, I finally managed to feed our dogs, only to find that Lily had peed right by the door.  (She couldn’t possibly have gone any of the four times I let her out in the past fifteen minutes – after all, the grass was damp.)  As soon as they finished their food, our two dogs ran outside and began barking at the squirrel sitting smugly in the tree, eating birdseed just out of their reach.  (Poppy and Ginger are utterly fascinated by squirrels, having seen only monkeys and birds in

Africa.)  And did I mention that Poppy is obsessed with the gerbils (you know, the ones in the dreaded back bathroom)?  Now two of the dogs are wrestling together in my clean sheets, and all of this going on while the 11-year-old German Shepard (who is no less of a puppy at heart than the rest of them) surveys the entirety of her kingdom with a look of bored detachment.

Coupled with the added fun of my eighteen-month-old sister and the two-day-a-week fun of my three young cousins, this house can get pretty nuts.  But I wouldn’t trade it for a thing.  My family is just right – perfectly quirky and perfectly my own.  And so today, as the extremely close proximity of my family was beginning to grate on my nerves, I just had to remind myself how thankful I am for them.  Family is a God-given blessing, and I’ll take a noisy house full of love and laughter over a quiet, empty house any day.

“Be joyful always;….give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.”  (1 Thessalonians 5:16-18)

After this, college life will be positively boring.  Whatever will I do with myself?

I just have to tell you that I am sick of them – sick to death.  They insinuate themselves in places where they have no right to be, and they only stay because we don’t tell them to leave.  Now, some of you may be thinking of pesky relatives, but I’m actually talking about lies.  (I am not talking about lying here, as in telling lies; I am talking about the lies that sneak into our minds, telling us untrue things about ourselves, our lives, our families – you get the picture.)  It is absolutely heartbreaking, the number of lies people live with on a daily basis.  And even worse than when we are living with lies is when we begin living out lies.  I am serious – we need to get some truth that will break these lies, or we will never be free to live out the amazing destinies God has planned for us.

“It’s all for nothing if you don’t have freedom.” – William Wallace in Braveheart

Here’s the thing about lies.  On their own, they are utterly powerless; they have only the power that you give them.  That means that lies don’t just suddenly pounce on us, taking us unaware and dragging us away.  For a lie to have any power in your life, you have to embrace it.  As you continue to cling to that lie, you are allowing it to sap your God-given strength, and that is a very dangerous thing, because that is what incapacitates you and makes you unable to fight the lies in your life.

That being the case, why on earth would we ever embrace a lie?!  Because they sound like truth.  If I told you that the sky had purple and green polka-dots today, would you believe me?  No, because you would know I was lying to you.  (At least, I hope you would!)  For a lie to be believable, it must have a hint of truth.  When Satan whispers lies to us, he coats them with truth so that we will swallow them.  It reminds me of the scene from The Princess Bride where Miracle Max’s wife coats Wesley’s miracle pill with “chocolate coating, to make it go down easier.”  However, that pill – just like the lies Satan feeds us – was, in reality, bitter and unwieldy.  Lies generally begin with a single errant feeling that crops up in your heart.  (This feeling is the “true” part, because you truly feel that thing.)  Sometimes this can be brought on by circumstances or by the way others treat us.  Whatever it is that sparks the lie, we can choose not to embrace it.  My parents always told my brother and me that when untrue feelings come into our heart, we can refuse to give them credence by saying, “It’s true that I feel this way, but this feeling isn’t telling me the truth.”  The problem in that is that we don’t usually recognize lies for what they are, and that is why understanding and embracing the truth is so vital.

“How I Love You” was written by Keith Green and has very poignant lyrics — I really like the way Jason Upton redid the music!  Seriously though, check out this verse:

“I was lied to;
You told the truth,
Because You are the Truth.
I was lied to;
You told the truth,
You told the truth to me.”

The truth is that we need Truth, and real Truth comes from only one Source: Jesus Christ.  Jesus says that when we know the truth, the truth will set us free (John 8:32).  But (are you ready for this?) He doesn’t just tell us that we need truth; He tells us what truth is – Himself (John 14:6).  This Truth is really all we need to know, for once we know what the Truth is, we’ll always be able to recognize the lies, because the two things will never fit together.

“…[W]hat fellowship can light have with darkness?” (2 Corinthians 6:14)

We are warned that “[our] enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour” (1 Peter 5:8).  Why this warning about insatiable lions?  Because we need to be prepared.  We often notice frontal attacks and recognize them for what they are, but Satan plays dirty (remember Eve and the lies he told her?), so he’ll hit us in the place that is the most sensitive, the most vulnerable – our hearts.  Once something goes wrong there, there is really nothing we can do to stop the poisonous spread of incapacitating lies – that is, aside from running to the loving arms of our Father and re-embracing Truth.

In the book of Ephesians, Paul goes into detail about the spiritual armor that we believers should and must wear if we are going to live in a way that is powerful and effective.  We are told to gird ourselves with the belt of truth.  I never really thought about it before, but that is actually a powerful metaphor for the way we must use Truth to protect the places in our lives that are most vulnerable to attack.

I have a dear friend who spent years living under a lie.  What was his lie?  “You’re worthless.  No one cares about you, and no one loves you.  You’re just worthless.”  I couldn’t believe that he believed it – I mean, he is outgoing and talented, and now is crazy in love with Jesus.  Yet he lived with this horrible lie whispering around in his heart for so long that he actually began to live out the lie, and his life meant nothing to him anymore.  By the time I met him, God had got ahold of him and rescued him from his destructive lifestyle, but still the lie would come back to tell him, “You’re worthless.”  I could always tell when that lie popped up again – he would become almost depressed, and painfully sad.  I told him that none of those things were true, and though technically he knew that, he would say, “But Sabra, it feels so true.”  Hearing that broke my heart, but more than that it made me angry – really deeply angry in a way that I had never been before, like a sort of righteous indignation.  God told me at that time that I needed to step it up – my friend needed someone to fight alongside him.  In a physical sense, there was nothing I could actually do, because I knew that the battle was spiritual.  So I fought with him and for him as we spent time together and also when I was alone in prayer.  There are times when we each must “fight the good fight” alone – just us and God – but there are other times when we need other people to come alongside us, adding their strength to ours and helping us face the battle. 

As for me, I am tired of embracing lies.  I want Jesus to illuminate every part of my life, exposing the lies and setting me free.  Like William Wallace in Braveheart, I am ready to go to battle for freedom because I know what is right and cannot ignore it anymore.  I am ready to fight for myself and for my brothers and sisters in Christ who have been incapacitated by lies in their lives.  I cannot possibly tolerate lies anymore; I utterly loathe them.  So be strong, braveheart; it is time to fight.  “Freedom!” is the battle-cry, and whom the Son sets free is free indeed (John 8:36).

I am one of those “Type A,” over-achiever people.  I like to do what I’m good at and be good at what I do.  On top of that, I tend to be pretty good at anything I undertake.  You’d think it would be a good thing, but it really makes it difficult sometimes – difficult to operate in God’s strength, that is.  That is one of my greatest weaknesses, and I have had to fall hard more than once to realize it.  When you are really good at something, or most things, you tend to rely on yourself a lot.  In most situations, what you can do on your own is more than sufficient, especially when you try extra hard to make it so.  Yet “sufficient” and “nearly perfect” don’t count with God.

“…[F]or all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God…” (Romans 3:23)

Think of a target.  Let’s say that it only counts if you hit the bull’s-eye.  Thus, when you shoot, it doesn’t matter whether you come an eighth of an inch from the center or you miss the target completely; you still didn’t make the mark – you still weren’t good enough.  That is how it is with God.  No matter how hard we try we will never be enough like Him.  Therein lies the problem: our trying.  I’ve listened to Jason Upton’s Just Like You many times, but I never truly noticed what it was saying before now.

“You stand beside me just waiting while I try to go it alone
Smiling You say son come here won’t you let me just help you
But frustrated I try to make it cause I’ve just got something to prove
Not knowing it is my weakness that perfects your power”

 I was so humbled.  I had tried so hard when I was never supposed to be trying at all, when I should have been operating in His strength.  My quest for perfection took a wrong turn when it failed to be a quest for God’s perfection.  You see, excellence is a bad thing to strive for in your own strength.  In God’s strength, however, it can be a beautiful thing to seek after, so long as you are seeking it because you have a desire to glorify the Father, and Him alone.  I used to strive for excellence because I felt a need to not merely do my best but to be the best.  Now I strive for excellence because I want to be all that God has called me to be, because I want to honor Him.  When I excel now, I do it in His strength.

“I desire
To be like You
Like any son or daughter
I want to be like my Father
I desire to be like You
You promised to never forsake me
So I’ll risk it all if you’ll make me like you”

I don’t know about you, but this daughter is ready to take that risk.  Each day I purposefully set aside my desire for human perfection in favor of being perfectly like Him.  The Lord says, “Be holy because I, the Lord your God, am holy” (Leviticus 19:2).  By definition, holy means “perfect in goodness and righteousness.” Perfection is excellence, and our loving heavenly Father has called us to excellence in Him.  Because He is perfect, I strive to be perfect in Him; and I can only do that with His help.

My prayer: “Jesus, I am sorry for striving in my own strength; I repent of it right now.  Help me to make peace with my own inadequacies, knowing that you are my more-than-enough and that I am perfectly safe in the shadow of your wings.  You and you alone are my strength.  Thank you for making a way with your blood for me to live a life of excellence in you, my King of Glory.”