“Have you realized that most of your unhappiness in life is due to the fact that you are listening to yourself instead of talking to yourself?” (Martyn Lloyd Jones, Spiritual Depression).
When our kids were little, I taught them that their thoughts were something they could actually control. We talked about how our minds are like airports, and there are always airplanes requesting to land, thoughts settling down. Some of those thoughts are good, but many aren’t. Some are enemy airplanes. And we can tell them they do not have permission to land.
Easier said than done.
We too often passively listen to those voices. We let them land and then we let them take root. They are voices from the past, voices that have been around so long we no longer question their truth or origin. It’s the voice of the enemy, hurling accusations at us. It’s the voice of fear or discouragement or pride sneaking in.
In moving through some hard experiences in the last year, I have become aware of the negative thoughts I listen to. I learned a helpful practice from Adam Young, on his podcast, The Place We Find Ourselves. In a fantastic series on spiritual warfare, he notes that we need to pay attention to the voice of the enemy. We need to recognize the accusations he brings against us.
Our enemy knows us well-knows what lies about ourselves and others we will swallow without question, what most easily knocks us down at the knees. Adam said that we should write those thoughts down and note: the enemy isn’t very creative. His lies tend to center around themes. For me: that it’s all up to me to keep things together. If I fail, people will be disappointed and leave (hey, no pressure).
Speak the Truth
While I can name those accusations, and am becoming aware of when I hear them, it’s not enough to just hope they’ll stop. Or to hope that maybe some good thoughts, some positive truth will come flying by to take their place.
No, what I’m learning I need to do is to be the one who talks back to the accusations. But we need to speak truth to ourselves, rather than passively listening to voices that we were never meant to hear. When we do, we are agreeing with God about who we are instead of the enemy.
One of the phrases that has stood out to me recently in scripture is “thus says the Lord.” There’s something so definitive about that, isn’t there? God said it, so that’s that. And what He says about us is so good.
Take Isaiah 43 for example, “Thus says the Lord . . . do not fear, I have redeemed you, I have summoned you by name, you are mine, I am with you, you are precious, I love you.” Those are the kind of thoughts I want to plant myself in. That’s where I make my home.
So while I know in my head what is true, lately I’ve started saying things like this out loud, and often. I tell myself the truth of Isaiah 43, and anything else that defeats the enemy’s accusations. I speak the gentleness and kindness I would speak to a friend going through what I’m encountering. God says this about me, therefore I will say it too.
Particularly in this anxious time, we have to be conscious of the thoughts we are permitting to land in our minds. Are they true? Is it what God says to us? If not, we can refuse them a place to land and instead tell ourselves what we most need to hear.
Years ago, a hair stylist told me that I should always have bangs, and short, blond hair. And I believed her.
For years, I obeyed those rules. Whenever the crazy idea entered my head that I stray from them, her authoritative, expert voice rang in my ears, cowing me into submission.
I currently have long, brown hair, no bangs. And I like it.
Which makes me think, “What else have I taken as truth, and let guide my life, that isn’t necessarily true?”
Granted, a hairstyle isn’t life-altering. But let’s dig deeper.
What about my 15-year-old self, staring at that friendship break-up note that said I wasn’t worth being friends with anymore?
Or my college self, feeling the sting of a friend’s accusation, “You don’t care enough about relationships,” (oh yeah? tell that to 15-year-old me).
Messages about friendship. Our bodies. Our value. What we can do. What we can’t. How far we can go.
Not enough. Better to be safe than sorry. Be amazing. You don’t fit in. Be indispensable so others love you. Don’t rock the boat.
Along the way, we get marked with messages.
Those messages shape us. They shape how we see ourselves, how we present and protect ourselves. They tell us who we should be, or who we can’t be. But those messages don’t have to define us. They simply may not be true.
So we have to question them. Consider the source. Did they come from someone who was for you? Do they keep you from living freely? Do they stem from patterns over time, or from someone’s observation in a moment? Because friends, we are not moments.
When we learn to question the messages people give us, we can overcome them. Take a lesson from these fine people:
Modeling agencies told Marilyn Monroe she’d be better off as a secretary.
Rudyard Kipling was told he didn’t know how to use the English language.
Thomas Edison’s teachers said he was, “Too stupid to learn anything.”
Walt Disney got fired because he, “lacked imagination and had no good ideas.” (that one makes me laugh out loud).
Imagine how different those lives would have been if they had carried those messages as truth. Friends, we wouldn’t have Disney World. Or light bulbs. Let that sink in.
In a Bible study on listening prayer, we were told to ask God, “How much do you love me?” and wait for a response.
While I fully believe God speaks to us, I don’t usually just sit there and wait for an answer. I have more of a “so . . . get back to me on that when you’ve got a chance” attitude. But this time, I just listened and this is what He said: The cross.
Now, I know what Christ did on the cross demonstrates His love for me, but at times it feels a little impersonal. Christ died for me, but He died for everyone. It’s like saying, “You’re unique, just like everyone else.” Who’s to say I didn’t get caught up in the cosmic mix of humanity?
So I said, “God if that’s your answer, you’re going to have to unpack that.” And of course, He did.
A couple of weeks later, I watched the movie, First Knight. As I watched, God said, “Gina, that’s what I did for you. Lancelot diving into the water, jumping through fire, fighting the enemy for Guenevere? That’s what I did at the cross. That desire you have in you for a hero who will sneak into enemy territory, break down the walls, slay the dragon, climb the highest tower because of his love for you – I am that hero.”
The cross was not simply an act of the will, but a passionate, daring, emotion-driven rescue of those He loved more than life itself.
It didn’t start with the cross though. God’s love for us showed up on earth as a helpless, vulnerable baby in the arms of an ordinary girl.
“Long lay the world, in sin and error pining, till He appeared, and the soul felt its worth. A thrill of hope, the weary world rejoices, for yonder breaks a new and glorious morn.” (best lyric of a Christmas song ever. I will fight you on this).
At that moment, He told us how much we’re worth to Him.
We’re worth being cold and hungry and tired and tempted and tried and misunderstood and hated. He was willing to come through a humble birth to live a humble life in order to rescue us.
And all so that one day, He could be our hero, come to our rescue, and save us from death itself. That’s how much we’re worth.
I hope in all the busyness of this season, we hold fast to that. Feel your worth, friends: worth living for, and worth dying for.
My 2nd-grade report card tells me I was a friendly, socially active child, but it contains one criticism, “Gina needs to learn to not talk to peers during quiet times.” I was, in the beginning, an extrovert.
And so I believed for many years. After all, I am a verbal processor. I love talking. Public speaking is my jam. The bigger the crowd, the better. In groups, I easily jump in with stories. I’ve always left parties feeling energized.
Or so I thought. After a while, I wondered if what I was feeling wasn’t energized, but “unsettled.” Mixed in with that energy, often, was insecurity. What did people think of me? Did what I share make them like me more? At times I feel compelled to join in social interaction. The FOMO is strong.
God brought me through a season when I recognized the dark side of this drive to belong. The expectations and opinions of others held me captive. As I experienced deeper peace and rest in my identity in Him, I felt freer. In that freedom, I thought, “Perhaps I am actually an introvert.”
So I gave that introvert emotional space to exist. My soul desperately needs solitude and silence to be restored. As fun as it is to entertain others with stories, I prefer sitting in the depths with someone one on one. Small talk is loathsome to me. It was freeing to step away from that which drained me.
Ah, but what to make of all my words and love of people? To claim introvert leads others to assume things about me that are not true: I don’t want to engage with them, would rather be left alone, or need time to think (I probably should take more time to think, but if you need thoughts from me, they’re right there). It’s left me lonely when I didn’t want to be.
Lately, I’ve noticed an inclination to choose solitude when I actually need people. I use the excuse that I’m an introvert, but perhaps the real reason is I’m afraid or lazy.
Easier to say I’m an introvert than drum up the courage to initiate with someone who might not have time. Admitting need is hard for me. Engaging with others is easy when I dominate conversation-harder when I have to listen well.
Perhaps on this journey, I am neither and I am both.
My suspicion is, the majority of us are. More than that, I see is how easy it is for us to use either one as an excuse. We use them to justify seeking the satisfaction of something our soul needs apart from God.
Maybe our pull toward people sometimes isn’t because they energize us, but because we are afraid of being alone. We seek affirmation that we are loved. Our souls ache for belonging. We long to feel accepted. Being with others is both a way to affirm our worth and to avoid the loneliness we dread.
There are times when we choose to be alone because we don’t want to put forth the energy to engage with others. Or we believe others disinterested in our presence. We let inertia keep us at home. And rather than using that time to feed our souls, we distract them with YouTube, social media, and a million other shallow pursuits. Our souls stay lonely.
These days, whether I feel inclined to engage with others or not, I’ve been trying instead to ask myself: what is driving me?
Am I avoiding something my soul needs to address by filling my time with people? Am I hoarding my time because I’m afraid to need others, afraid of rejection?
We all need people, and we all need solitude.
And yes, we tend to be more naturally comfortable with one or the other. But these labels harm us if we use them as an excuse to avoid what our souls truly need at any given time.
Could I suggest instead we be more contemplative? Rather than labeling ourselves one or the other, let’s acknowledge that we were made for both, and ask God to help us engage in ways that feed our souls and others.
In college, I was on track to graduate Summa Cum Laude. I only needed a 3.8. Unfortunately, I attended a university that factored minuses and pluses in the grades, rather than straight letters. I had no pluses-only some A-‘s. Those were enough to make me graduate with a 3.79 repeating. They didn’t round up.
At first, I wanted to justify that number to people. I looked back in regret at a couple A-‘s that could have easily been A’s had I done one thing differently. But after a while it occurred to me, “No one cares what my grade point was.”
My worth is far more than a number I achieved.
As our son heads into his senior year, we’re thick in the midst of standardized testing, the ultimate “judge you by a number” scenario. Our boy has studied hard, but the results haven’t been quite what he’d hoped. I thought back on my 3.79 repeating, and told him what I know, “You are more than a number.”
Everywhere we look, we are reduced to numbers: what the scale tells us, how much money we bring in, what our grade point average is, our time on that 5K, the number of our social media followers.
People use those numbers to assign value, to decide who’s in and who’s out, who’s worth their time. They use them to put themselves above others, to feel better about themselves, to claim a temporary space in the world.
But we are so much more than a number.
A number is just a snapshot. It is one picture in a huge collage of who we are. Most of those outward numbers represent transient, arbitrary, and superficial aspects of our lives. They can change tomorrow, for better, or worse. In a week, a month, a year, they will no longer be true. Or remembered.
They are a poor foundation on which to establish our worth.
Numbers do not measure how much we are loved. How well we love others cannot be quantified. They can’t measure our intelligence, attractiveness, importance, or character.
Numbers do not define what we give to the world. They do not define our gifts or passions. Our worth in the eyes of God is not weighed on a scale. Nothing adds or subtracts to any of that one iota.
Some numbers are necessary, for a time. That’s ok. Let’s hold them with a grain of salt, though, and remember that they do not name who we are. We are so much more than a number.
So there I was, scrolling through twitter like I do sometimes, when I noticed a comment by a well-known author I follow.
It was just a random comment, but it had 17 replies. Never have I ever had 17 replies to a comment I made on twitter. It’s a red letter day when I get one comment. The thought that jumped to mind was,
“I wish I was (name of well-known author, whose identity is irrelevant).”
And the next thought that jumped into my head was, “How dare you?”
Not, “How dare you presume you could ever achieve that level of notoriety.”
No, it was, “How dare you think that you should be anyone other than who you are.“
It’s so easy to do, isn’t it? I wish I were like her. That would be a better story. If only I had that job. I wish I had that body. She’s a better mom. If only we had that kind of money. I want his career trajectory, her opportunities, that life.
At that moment, God convicted me. Because to compare myself to another and think that maybe I would be better off, more loved, more significant, if I were them, is an affront to my Creator.
Who we are, where we are, what we’re doing, what we are able to do–it’s God’s poetry. He wrote us this way. We are designed by the ultimate designer. He delights in how He has made us. What He has created in us He loves. He wouldn’t have us any other way.
So when you are tempted to look sideways and compare, “Maybe that life would be better than this one,” banish the thought. It’s a lie from the pit of hell.
It takes our eyes off what He has made is in us that is so very good.
Our view of what He has given us to offer the world gets diminished.
It says less about us than it does about our view of Him and His work.
Don’t wish you were anyone else. Be who He made you to be. Agree with Him that it is good. Embrace it. Live it to the fullest. Take joy in who you are, because He does.
“But now thus says the LORD, he who created you, O Jacob, he who formed you, O Israel: “Fear not, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name, you are mine.” Isaiah 43:1
How was everyone’s Valentine’s Day? Mine was less than stellar. In the morning I woke up feeling off, and by afternoon I had a fever, aches, a head that felt like it might explode, and what sounded like a case of tuberculosis. All this added up to me as the lamest Valentine’s date ever. We spent the evening eating Tijuana Flats in bed watching videos on our phones. It was everyone’s Valentine’s dream.
Tis the season to talk about, think about, hope for, and cherish love. But I wonder how many people, even those of us who are married, even those who have deep relationships with others, long for something more.
We long to be loved. Our hearts ache for a love that is solid, never-ending, secure. We want to be fully known and at the same time deeply loved for all our good, bad, and even ugly.
Oh yes, please even for the ugly. Please tell us it’s possible to be consistently loved even at our worst, so that we can stop hiding our less-than parts behind closed doors and be fully ourselves instead.
Tell us there’s someone from whom we never have to fear rejection, abandonment, for whom we are never just too much, too hard to love.
I’m here to say today: it’s possible. It’s more than possible. It’s true. That is how we are loved. As I thought about what I wanted to share this week, every part of my being wants to tell you this truth:
You are loved. Period. The end. No ifs, ands or buts. You are deeply, without hesitation, loved, with an all-encompassing love.
How do I know? Because the whole of scripture tells me it’s true. The Bible is a love story, friends. It’s one long epic tale of the hero who stole into enemy territory under cover of darkness to rescue the ones He loves, because the thought of eternity without us was unacceptable to Him. We were worth everything. We are worth everything.
He first loved us. That’s important to remember. He doesn’t love us because, or when, or if. He just loves us, with a love that is unshakeable, unchanging, unconditional.
I love how Henri Nouwen puts it in Life of the Beloved,
“My only desire is to make these words reverberate in your being, ‘You are the beloved.'”
Seriously, my one prayer for all of us today, it is that we live loved. We stop wandering, searching for lesser loves to satisfy our hungry souls. We stop doubting. Stop believing the lie that there’s something that gets us voted off His island. Stop listening to the voices that tell us to prove our worth, and we just soak in this truth today:
You are loved, you are loved, you are loved.
So maybe your Valentine’s Day was a bust. Loneliness gnaws at the corners of your life and questions your value. You’re feeling let down by people in your life. Maybe you’re feeling the sting of rejection. We’re all hungry for just a little more love.
So let me say it again: You are loved. May this thought echo off the walls of your hearts today. Repeat it to yourself until it becomes the place where you live. He loves you.
There are two lies we can live by, flip sides of the same coin.
One lie tells us that we might be too much for other people. Too needy, too messy, too emotional, too demanding of the emotional space of others.
The lie tells us to live in fear of being “that person” – the one who asks more than others want to give. It says there’s a limit to how much people want of us.
The other side says maybe we’re not enough. We’re the shirt someone sees in the store that they like, but not quite enough to try it on, not quite enough to invest in it.
It says sure, they like us, but maybe they don’t really like us. Not enough to pursue us. The lie says we might not be fun enough, or interesting enough, or whatever enough of what it would take for them to come closer.
The lies keep us in a crazy battle to be less of this and more of that. They make us question ourselves, to hold back when we should be authentic, to hide parts of ourselves in order to be more acceptable, a constant, “Do you like me now? Do you like me now?” They demand we find a way to make ourselves perfectly lovable.
Both lies say the burden is on us to prove ourselves. We must earn a spot in peoples’ hearts.
They tell us there is no place to rest.
But the truth sets us free.
“As long as I keep running about asking: ‘Do you love me? Do you really love me?’ I give all power to the voices of the world and put myself in bondage because the world is filled with ‘ifs.'” (Henri Nouwen, Return of the Prodigal Son)
Yes, those lies are bondage. When they whisper to us, “prove yourself worthy,” we say back, “It’s already been done.”
The truth is, we aren’t meant to measure worth, we are simply called to live it. We are worth the space we take up in this world. We are worth pursuing.
If we weren’t, then the God of the universe would not have taken the time to put us here. He would not have come for us. He would not have died in our place. He’s declared us worthy.
Do you know what they mean to me? The fact that you wanted them means you are learning to know your own mind. My girl, who so often fears choices because they might not be “right,” you knew that you wanted those.
And then you wanted to wear them with your dress. Your words were, “it’s just like those movies where the girls aren’t girly girls, so they wear shoes with dresses.”
Yeah, it is. Let’s pull out Pretty in Pink and Some Kind of Wonderful, although probably you’re thinking of something else since those are my movies, not yours. My heart skipped a little just seeing you own who you are.
All your life, this is what I have wanted for you – that you would know yourself and claim it. That you would see that how He has made you is so very, very good. That you would love how He made you a bundle of sweet, heartbreaking empathy and tough, play through the hurt grit. He made you to love puppies and hate pink. He made you sweet and sassy.
I know that in the age you are, you have so much pressure to be what others want you to be in order to fit in. It might just be a pair of Converse (that we scored on a sweet sale), but to me, it’s an answer to prayer, that you would learn to express who you are and know that it is good.
I am so glad that in the midst of all the voices, you are finding your own.
It was in that Bible study that I realized I was not free.
We were eight couples, all of us fresh into our time as expats in Singapore, struggling to find our footing in what we jokingly called “Fantasy Island.” That group was a lifeline in the midst of our turbulent transition to a new country, yet I often walked away from times with them feeling insecure and unsettled. Why?
Read the rest of the story at The Mudroom blog, where I’m guest posting this week.
