My Haunting Lie
Lent is a long season of exposure and it's not very comfortable. Think back to a time where you
have felt the most exposed in your own weakness or vulnerability. Perhaps you made a mistake
and were called out on it in front of friends or colleagues. Maybe one of your deepest secrets
became public knowledge without your consent. Exposure is painful because we are seen for
who we really are and not who we pretend to be. We are unmasked, without cover from our own
sin and faults.
The reality is that when we hide, the things we are trying to cover haunt our actions and our
ability to be a true presence of Jesus in the world. Even more tragic, most of the things we hide
from others and dismiss about ourselves are the very same things that drive almost all of our
actions, thoughts, and beliefs. It’s almost as if we cannot escape them fully.
Reflecting upon what happened after Adam and Eve decided to not trust God's word by eating
from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, the first thing they did was try and cover
themselves up and hide from God. We have followed their cue ever since then. We become stuck
between trying to hide our own weakness and sin while trying to convince the rest of the world
we remain okay.
In the spirit of Lent and of exposure, I want to share about one lie that has haunted me all my
life. Maybe it’s the lie that haunts you too. It’s this: "Who I am is not good enough...." You can
finish that sentence in so many ways for me. For the longest time it was "You're not good enough
to get married, i.e. get someone who'll actually think you are good enough to commit to share
their life with you." Or it is "You're not good enough at what you do that you will actually make a difference.” These are two very small but destructive examples of how this lie comes up over
and over in my life. Whatever is going on in my life, it’s like this lie takes root again and again
within me, and I'm sad to say it often ends up dictating my actions and feelings. I not only start
questioning myself, I start working really hard to somehow prove my worth. In an effort to
affirm my own worth I become judgemental and condescending to others, making assumption,
gossiping, putting others down, all while I become more entitled myself. And here is the most
devastatingly vital piece of this whole ugly process: I become so consumed with myself that
there is not space left for me to love God and love others as myself.
I am coming to realize that the problem with these lies in our lives is that we give the wrong
people or things the most authority over the matter. For myself, I started to give social media
too much of a voice, ignoring God's voice almost completely.
In this season of Lent, I decided that I will fast from social media so that I can allow God's voice
to become the loudest voice telling me I am good enough as I am, simultaneously putting social media's voice in its place. I am unwilling to listen to the wrong voices any longer, so that I can bea person who lives in and brings God's peace to our world.
I pray that as you engage in this season of Lent, where our sin and selfishness is exposed, that
you find the new life and truth God wants us to feast on in our actual life. But first, let’s dig into Lent, courageously beginning a new season of exposing the lies in our hearts.