Originally published Monday, 12 October 2015.
Do you know your story?
Do you really know it in a way that will guard you against the I-can't-do-it moments?
I am beginning to know it in this way and it is making all the difference. I am beginning to see the small cracks in my armor.
I can't do it. Crack.
I won't succeed. Crack.
I am losing my abilities. Crack.
I won't be blessed. Crack.
God's calling is non-existent. Crack.
I have no purpose. Crack.
I will not be led, inspired, helped, released, forgiven. Crack.
I will never be good enough. Crack.
My deep crack was: I can't write. God hasn't called me to do this. He is no longer blessing my work.
Underneath this crack, lived surface pressure: God won't really be for you. He will leave you. Crack.
A crack is just enough for the devil's foot to grab a hold of a heart.
A crack is just enough to forge a distance of space
between us and the God of our dreams.
A crack is just enough for a foothold of discouragement
to break down faithfulness.
A crack is just enough for him to start
ransacking our holy temples of God.
Which he loves to do. If he can penetrate a crack, he will perpetuate all problems. Days, turn into weeks, which turn into months, which turn into years and before you know it, the door to dejection is flung wide open. Suddenly, what you realize is that you are standing there vulnerable, naked, exposed and not sure where to run.
Unaddressed lies turn into a dressing of no protection that move us from
armed by the power of truth to defeated by the cleverness of lies.
Make no mistake, the devil is a carnivore who delights in eating up anything resembling the temple of God. We don't have to have four legs for him to take a bite of our flesh. We don't have to be doing bad things to get chewed up and spit out by the one who hates us.
He wants to take our true, honest, just, pure, lovely, virtuous, and praiseworthy (Phil. 4:8) and make it fake, deceitful, unfair, desecrated, horrible, vile and condemnation-worthy.
When our thoughts move to unholy, we become unholy. The second dirty hands leave an imprint, we grow shame at their touching. The second he raises uncertainty, we become certain that God doesn't love us anymore.
This happened to me. But then I saw it. I saw what changes it all, the way of flipping my heart back into God's goodness.
Here is what I saw:
1.) An alone, uncertain and unsure 3rd grader. One who for the life of her could not read or write with the other kids. One who knew she would never succeed. One who would never learn. One who couldn't progress. It's no wonder she stayed back that year, she was a loser of a writer. The only comfort she lived with, besides her thumb-sucking habits, was the idea that she would always fail.
2.) A grown woman at the will of an abusing woman. An abusive woman who would rip up time-intensive writing works with an air of "how could you?" An abusive woman who was a nightmare by day and literally a nightmare by night. An abusive woman whose degrading and demoralizing taunts still haunt. A woman who caused an eager-to please employee long-lasting defeat, pain and fear of future criticism because her voice still resounds today.
3.) The devil is one who doesn't give cause to our small cause, but one who goes after our big, audacious and wild causes for the Lord. He is one who, from day 1, has been trying to savor and steal the blessing the Lord has been baking and preparing our whole life. He is the one who never wants the timer of "ready" to ring and resound.
What has the Lord been baking
that the devil is hungry to burn?
What central lie, from day 1,
has the devil pounded over you to ensure you crack?
For me, he wanted to burn my belief that I could write, so that I never could write for the Lord.
What is it for you? It has likely been happening from the days of old and he will continue it through days of new if you let him.
He wants us handicapped. He wants us crippled. He wants us unable to walk towards real purpose, real value and real transformation. Jesus wants us free, full and ready to say, "This is my body, take and eat."
The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly. Jo. 10:10
Jesus enters into our life to bring life - always and everyday. But, beware, we are being sent you out like sheep among wolves. Therefore we must be as shrewd as snakes and as innocent as doves (Mt. 10:16). Are you this way?
This means, if we are standing firm, we must be careful that we don't fall (1 Cor. 10:12)! Are you ensuring your good standing before the Lord?
We must "see to it, brothers and sisters, that none of (us) has a sinful, unbelieving heart that turns away from the living God. (Heb. 3:12) Are you turning away as you analyze and consume yourself in the small cracks of your armor?
The cracks we cannot see, we cannot repair.
If you don't want the tectonic plates of your life to shift beyond repair, the time is now to shift your view on all you have believed to be true your entire life.
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