I’ve been thinking a lot about truth lately. I had a difficult conversation with someone recently where they had a lot of grievances. I’m actually really glad we had it because God used it to show me some things about myself I hadn’t realized before. But it was hard and I’ve spent a lot of time trying to sort through what they said.
See, I know myself. I am not good at sorting out what’s true and what’s not. This is something I have learned the hard way. Therefore, my go to is to ask God to show me what’s true–regardless of who says it or what they say.
A couple of my dear friends who helped me process through this experience expressed hope that someday the lies people say will just bounce off, rather than causing me to doubt myself and fall back into depression. It made me think about what’s causing those lies to stick.
When I spent some time praying about it, the picture I got was of grappling hooks and force fields–can you tell I’m a sci-fi AND fantasy girl? 😉 We are surrounded by lies: lies the world tells us through advertising or mistaken cultural values, lies the people in our lives tell us–whether that’s our co-workers or families or friends or people in the Church, lies we tell ourselves… lies that are overtly spoken and lies that are covertly conveyed. They’re everywhere!
So imagine this: you are a wall with hundreds of grappling hooks being flung at you. Where are they going to stick? In the places where the wall isn’t smooth, right?
But what if you were so smooth it was like you were covered with a force field? The hooks wouldn’t have a shot at embedding themselves in you. That’s what faith in God’s truth is. It’s a forcefield or a shield, as Paul puts it (Eph. 6:16), that keeps lies from hurting us or taking root.
I really love this idea! It’s like that illustration where bank tellers are taught to recognize forgeries by learning what legitimate money looks like inside and out. They study real money so they’ll recognize the forgery. By immersing ourselves in God’s truth, we can lie-proof our lives.
So what about you? In what areas of your life are you struggling? And what’s God’s truth in those places?
