Driven to Dependence

What if, on some level, the thing I don’t want to believe about myself is true?

That’s a scary thought, huh? But work with me here and let’s talk this out.

What are some things that I believe people may think about me? Or what are some ways I feel others treat me that imply they may be thinking a certain way about me? Perhaps, I even have some negative thoughts of myself. What are they?

“I’m a failure.”
“I’m controlling.”
“I’m being self-protective.”
“I’m arrogant and prideful.”
“I disrespect others.”
“I have a drinking problem.”

The list goes on and on. You could probably add some others to this list. The purpose at looking honestly at these thoughts is to experience freedom to whatever degree that we are currently NOT free. I propose that when we defensively attempt to wiggle out of addressing underlying issues, we are not free in that area. We may know freedom in other areas, we may be excellent teachers of freedom to others, but in whatever way we are believing in and acting out of a lie, we are in bondage. So, just know that my ultimate goal in processing through these thoughts is to guide us to a deeper level of freedom than we may currently know.

Usually when someone accuses me (either overtly or covertly) of something, my first instinct is to become defensive and attempt to disprove them. The measures I may use to go about this can be quite elaborate. I may expose some flaw in them so as to take the focus off myself. I may sarcastically agree only to shut them up. I may play the part of a victim. Sometimes, I jump right to the speculation and begin to lecture and defend why I am behaving the way I am. But the last thing I even think to do, is to own the accusation. It doesn’t even occur to me to simply agree, “You know, you are right…I have failed you in this way.” Or, “I can see that I am choosing to be quite self-protective at this time in my life.” Rather, my outburst usually goes something like this: “You’re damn right I have to self-protect…after all the ways you have hurt me and disregarded my heart and not heard me time after time. You would self-protect too! And after all, I have every right to be where I am and if you don’t like it, you can get over it! I am through with caring so much about everyone else at the expense of myself! If anyone is going to protect and take care of me, it will have to be myself!”

Whoa! Who licked the candy off her apple?? And out comes an outburst of defensive explanations, blame-shifting, attempts to control the other person all in an effort to release inner hurt and pain. But what if I were to decide to take an entirely different approach? What if, I agreed with what someone was saying about me and owned it? What if there were a grain of truth in the accusation, even if only a small one? If I could admit that “grain” and begin to address it with truth, I could take control of the only person I really have control over to start with. Let’s look at one of the “beliefs” and walk it out to see what it would look like to agree with it.

“I can see where I am being quite self-protective at this time in my life.” Answering some questions can begin to penetrate through our defense mechanisms and get to the heart of the matter.

“What are you trying to protect?”
“What has hurt you in the past that leaves you feeling a need to be self-protective?”
“What are you afraid of?” “What is your fear?”
“What are you truly wishing for deep inside?”
“What is your true heart’s desire?”
“Have you closed your heart off to desire?”
“Are you cynical that nothing will ever be different?”

Depending on how you answer the questions, can reveal what you are really believing in relation to yourself at the core of your identity. Now, what does God say about you? Who is He to you? What has He done for you, in you and on your behalf? Who has He made you to be, in spite of what you do or how you cope with life or deal with pain and disappointment? Where is your focus? Do you see yourself through God’s lenses? Or through others’ and your own? After answering some of the above questions in italics, it is helpful to answer some more questions. Such as: If I am trying to protect my heart from getting hurt again by putting up a cold wall to those around me, the Spirit may whisper to my soul, “Cynthia, whose job is it to protect you?” If I am thinking straight I will answer, “Yours, Lord.” This is not an attempt to be super-spiritual, but it is to place responsibility where it belongs. When I do that, I am able to relieve others of the responsibility to be for me what God never intended them to be. Yes, on some level, I believe He did intend for others to be conduits through which His love, protection, etc. could flow through. But when that other person fails us in whatever way, we are not left hopeless and helpless. We are not meant to “take care of ourselves”. We were created for dependence. Through pain, sorrow and disappointment, God drives us to that position of dependence. Not because He enjoys tormenting us or dangling carrots before our eyes only to snatch them away from our reach. He knows we need His rescue and that on our own we would not naturally seek to depend on anyone. We are driven to independence instinctually. He loves us with a relentless passion and desires our freedom that can only come through dependence on Him alone and so….we mess up, we fail, we disappoint others and are disappointed. The consequences of the Fall of mankind have infected us all. When we become aware of it our natural instinct is to defend ourselves. But who is our Defender? Who is our Advocate? What this all points to is the reality that we needed a Rescuer and we still need a Rescuer. Ongoing, present tense. Will I look to Him? Or will I continue to attempt to take care of my own need for rescue? Whose opinion of you is most important – His or others? Or your own? Something to really think about, huh?

Concept of God

It is my last full day on the island of Barbados. I decided after breakfast to go down to the beach right in front of our guest house. I had yet to take in that particular spot. So here I go, by myself, in search for Elizabeth a treasure from the sea. I walked back and forth allowing the waves to spill only onto my feet and ankles as I looked. The many shades of the turquoise ocean have yet to bore me. And while the loud roar of the waves has made some of our conversations difficult to hear, I still take a deep breath at the mightiness of the constant sound.

After walking a bit and finding a few treasures just the right size to pack in my suitcase, I sit down on a big rock. The water splashes once in a while over my feet enough to cool me. “You’ve carried me through it all….everything I have come through, You have seen me through it. I have learned to trust You, to rely on You and to need nothing more than You. Sometimes that can cause others to misunderstand me and think they don’t matter to me. Nothing is further from the truth….yet the reality of living life from a freedom of knowing that my significance, worth and value can only be realized as I look dead center on the sufficiency of the finished work on the Cross. Fill me with a fresh love.”

While sitting on that rock, looking out over the horizon and back again to the coming and going of the tide, I thought of my “picture of God” I had drawn back in the summer of ’99. I had believed the lie that God was One who played cruel tricks on His children and was playing one on me by yanking one ministry opportunity after another out of my reach. All of a sudden this one shell caught my attention. It was being carried in and then back out again with each new wave. I remembered what I had learned about the ocean and shells. The continual movement refines these shells, turning them into smooth stones. After many motions of the rough sand over them, back and forth through the ocean, eventually they are smoothed….much like me. The dark, difficult times of my life have been refining, conforming me to the work of the Father.

In this moment, I saw a beautiful picture of God: He has always been at work, preparing me and preparing others for me. Instead of yanking opportunities like a cruel trickster, He has been orchestrating something beautiful that only He could see. He loves me and He loves those I will minister to and He knows what is best. He knows when it is best. I can trust Him still and join Him in what He is already doing in my life. I don’t need to seek some thing, He will guide me to it. I don’t need to envy someone else’s opportunity of ministry; I am content where He has me. Trust, reliance and dependence: good choices I can make because of who I am and Whose I am.

Toppled by a Wave

Ok...so I know you all will enjoy the fact that I was toppled by a wave....twice....while playing on the beach today. Earrings and all got soaking wet....while Barry and Laurie got a big laugh at my expense! What a way to close the day as the sun starting slowly dropping to the horizon. Before that, we took a fun trip all around the island with Sandy and Heather. At one point the guys were so concerned for their "windblown hair look" that they could hardly pose for their picture. (Just imagine Barry laughing the same way a few hours later as he witnessed the ocean taking control over me.) Life is like that alot of the time: something seems to take control over your feelings so strongly that you believe those feelings are the truth. The feelings often for me are those of hurt, misunderstood, intimidated, misrepresented. Spiraling off them come the lies attached: "They don't think well of me"; "What will she/he think of me now?"; "I am always misunderstood".As long as I continue in that line of thinking my natural response is usually to run away, go silent, withdraw....and/or to defend myself, justify, over-explain and attack back. My feelings have toppled me out of control much like the waves washing over me and causing me to fall on all fours. When I choose to stay instead of run; pray for clarity instead of attack; continue to engage in community rather than escape into silence and quietly be willing to be misunderstood, a miracle has occurred. I have walked in the Spirit instead of reacting in the flesh. The waves may come....circumstances beyond my control....but I have the power of the gospel available to me to rely on. I did pretty good this time. Father, help me tomorrow.

Who Makes Me Good Enough?

Have you ever felt and even believed the lie, “I’m not good enough”? With that one comes another right on the heels of it, “More is required of me” and another, “I’ll never measure up”? Where do you go then? Is it, “So why try? Forget this! Forget You, God!” Or does your survival method look more like, “Well, I’ll just try harder”, “Surely after I do this and then that, you’ll like me… you’ll approve of me, etc”.

These “voices in our head” are strangely familiar. I can identify….and I found two new friends that share this struggle with me; David and Marie. David is a Korean man who lives in Atlanta and Marie, who lives here in Barbados. Three very uniquely different people from 3 different places across the globe, yet we have something in common that goes deep and traces back to each of our different childhoods. Through our varied backgrounds, we all three have come to know the inner turmoil of believing the lies of Satan, our enemy. While those lies have been dealt with at the cross, they still rear their ugly heads to speak into our minds and we have to choose to believe the truth that counteracts each of them. Some days we do pretty good; other days are a different story.

God will do and use whatever He wants to tell us how much He loves us. He’ll prove Himself over and over by continuing to speak truth to our hearts. He will open doors…miraculous doors that no one else could have ever opened apart from Him. His Spirit which indwells us, will resonate His truth within us. He will cause us to hear His words of truth amid the loud clamor in our heads. When He does these things, He is pointing to the truth of what He has done and won for us when He took our place at the Cross. Then He sealed the miracle when He was raised from the dead. In that moment, Jesus became our “enough”. He is enough. We need no one else, nothing more and in Him we are complete and completely okay. Nothing more is required. We no longer have to measure up to anything or anyone. To try harder is to reject His finished work. We have the stamp of approval from the One who matters most. His favor is a gift that He has won for us and then granted to us. We did nothing to earn it and we still can do nothing to earn it. Wow! When I believe this truth and rest in it, it quiets the “voices in my head”. I am free now to respond out of love and gratitude.

David, Marie and I can embrace the reality of our identity in Christ and we can actually live life as if it is true. Because it is! We are free to serve others or not serve; we are free to be who God has called us to be and we are free to leave our own country and go in the “not knowing” all that God will involve us in. “No one is made okay with God by obedience or lack of obedience to what God’s law commands…rather we are made okay with God by faith in what Jesus has done on our behalf.” (Galatians 2:16; my paraphrase)

So, the bottom line questions become: “Do I believe I need what Jesus has done for me and in me? Is He enough? Or is there something else I must do to be sure? Can I…will I take hold of His truth by faith and rest in His perfect work?