don't believe everything you think

There’s a bumper sticker out there that says, “Don’t believe everything you think.”

I had an anxiety attack last week - something unlike anything I’ve experienced before, despite having more than my share of chronic anxiety in my lifetime. This was the first time it really felt like that long-unwanted companion was actually attacking me.

It came with the shakes, nausea, and a sense of terror and impending doom - my mind screaming at me, “RUN! FIGHT! SOMETHING TERRIBLE IS ABOUT TO HAPPEN!”

The irony was, of course, that it was those very thoughts that kept me frozen, paralyzed, capable only of crumpling up on my bed and trying to remember how to breathe. Something terrible was about to happen, but I was utterly helpless to stop it or to save myself.

There’s no fear quite like that one.

And yet, ten minutes later, nothing terrible had happened. My raging adrenaline began to recede and my mind began to clear and before too long, the whole episode seemed almost silly somehow, even though the panic had been all too real.

My mind had lied to me.

This is not the first time I’ve been faced by my brain’s pathological dishonesty, and it won’t be the last, but it was a stark reminder of how much fear and freedom come with the discovery that our brains can be liars. Fear - because it suddenly feels like the enemy himself holds territory inside us, and so he does in a way; Satan is “a liar and the father of lies” (John 8:44) and any lie that takes us into its grip must be a victory for him. And freedom - because at last we realize that we don’t have to be helplessly battered by every cruel, critical, or anxious thought. At last we can build a strategy for our defense.

But as anyone who has ever been lied to from within can tell you (and that’s all of us), it’s rarely as simple as it would seem.

Jesus said, only a couple of paragraphs before the words I just quoted from John 8, “If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free” (John 8:31-32). Clearly the strategy to get free from the choking grip of falsehood is the same one Jesus Himself used when He was tested by Satan in the wilderness: We must cut through the lies’ noose using the sharp blade of Truth.

But there’s a step that comes before that. Before we can do any heroic sword-wielding, we must know the truth.

And this, I think, is where so many of us get stuck.

In our age of technology where almost every claim can be backed up by measurable evidence, it seems we’ve developed an assumption that believing what is true instead of what is false will be easy. Truth is objectively confirmed, and stands resolute regardless of subjective measures like individual feelings, thoughts, and beliefs. So it shouldn’t be that hard to identify and take hold of. A sword looks much different from a noose.

And yet Jesus also said, “But because I tell you the truth, you do not believe Me” (John 8:45).

We may think ourselves to be rational and objective and intelligent beings, but when there’s a voice inside our heads that says “You are worthless” and a voice outside of ourselves saying “You are inestimably valuable,” we will invariably choose to believe the subjective voice within us. It doesn’t matter that all evidence points the other way - that every other human being is clearly inestimably valuable, or that God Himself is the one who says it, or that Jesus Christ shed His blood for us. We still trust our own minds above all.

So we will catch a glimpse of the very sword that could set us free, but then decide that we’d rather remain suffocated by the noose than risk falling on a sword. It’s not that we want to believe lies - it’s that we can’t even identify which is the method of execution and which is the way of escape: the noose, or the sword? The long-held beliefs of the mind, or the objectively-validated statements of God’s Word? The Father of Lies, or the One who is called Faithful and True?

Yes, the truth has the power to set us free. But first we have to know the truth. We have to be able to identify it when we hear it, to differentiate between what is familiar and what is freedom.

Huge leaps have been made in the last few decades in the understanding of the human brain. We know that the brain is highly malleable, especially when we are young (which is when most of us first accept lies into our patterns of thinking). We also know that the brain is made to be efficient to the point of laziness. It will always choose the path of least resistance - it will always choose what is familiar, even when what’s familiar is harmful.

It will always follow the same old pathways that the lies have entrenched in it unless we make the daily, concerted effort to alter those pathways.

For me, it takes only a small trigger to set off a chain reaction of anxiety in my brain, following the lead of very familiar lies such as, “It’s your fault.” “You’re not safe.” “God can’t be trusted.” “If you don’t fix it, no one will.” “This happened because you’re not good enough.”

These statements sound very, very true to me even though they’re very, very false. They are so deeply wired into my brain that even when I manage to recognize the tightening of the noose, it still takes immense effort for me to grab hold of the sword and cut myself free. But I am, at least, beginning to recognize the sword as my weapon of defense, not as another threat to my safety.

Let’s do away with the assumption that the truth is easy to believe. Even when we can see all the evidence before us, it’s nearly always easier to trust the comfortable lies. Rebuking Satan is hard. Reaching for freedom is hard. Allowing Jesus Christ, the Word of God, to define our reality is hard.

But God put the most magnificent piece of all His creation right between your ears. The human brain is not static. It molds and shapes and responds to the input it receives and the habits it forms, and it is empowered even further by the Holy Spirit who lives within us. We do not have to live in captivity to lies - our minds can be made new!

And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect.

Romans 12:2

The first step is to know the truth.

And then the truth can set you free.

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But what do I do if I don’t know the truth?

Most of us formulated a mix of truth and lies as the basis of our understanding of the world when we were growing up. The exact recipe is different for each of us, depending on what our parents taught us, patterns of emphasis in our homes, our unique personalities, and our encounters with God.

The first thing we can do to find out what is true is, of course, to know God’s Word. The Bible is our ultimate source for truth, and it speaks directly to questions of human value, responsibility, shame, worthiness, love, sin, and the character of God. This will be your foundation.

But many of the lies we believe are highly specific to ourselves and difficult to rebuke with a generalized verse alone. Often, one of the keys to rejecting the lies we’ve held close is understanding where they came from and why we believe them in the first place. This is where the community of believers can be a vital resource in the battle. It’s usually much easier for someone else to see the falsehoods in your mind’s narrative than it is for you, and an outside party can often help you work through some of the experiences and relationships that have reinforced those beliefs. I love this saying: “You were wounded in community and you must be healed in community.” We don’t get hurt in a vacuum - usually, someone else hurts us. But we don’t get healed in a vacuum either. We need each other.

So get in the Word (I’ve got a reading plan for you right here). And get in community - whether you seek out a small group, a friend, a family member, a counselor, a mentor, or a psychotherapist, don’t try to do this work by yourself. The lion always preys on the one who walks alone.

all things new

It’s a new year - again - already.

It feels like we were just here, turning the calendar from 2017 to 2018. It feels like I was just waiting to turn 24 and holding my breath to see what the year would bring and writing about my hope to remain thankful, regardless.

For as long as I can remember, I’ve had a love-hate sentiment toward the turn of each new year. I love the idea of a clean slate, a time to reevaluate life and make changes where needed. But I have always listened to the midnight fireworks popping with a sense of fear and dread, too - afraid of change, afraid of what could happen and what could be lost, afraid of trading what’s old and familiar for what’s new and uncertain.

This new year, in particular, has been difficult. It’s an anniversary of the many painful things that came one after the other at the beginning of 2018, and to be candid, I’ve been working hard to remain in denial that it’s January again because I just don’t want to think about that stuff. Last year, “new” meant “bad” - just like I’ve always feared.

Then I came across a handful of verses that got me thinking.

Do not call to mind the former things, or ponder things of the past. Behold, I will do something new, now it will spring forth; will you not be aware of it? I will even make a roadway in the wilderness, rivers in the desert. The beasts of the field will glorify Me, the jackals and the ostriches, because I have given waters in the wilderness and rivers in the desert, to give drink to My chosen people. The people whom I formed for Myself will declare My praise.

Isaiah 43:18-21

I’ve heard this passage plenty of times before, but this time one contextual fact stuck out to me: This assurance from Yahweh to His people comes in the midst of Isaiah’s prophecies of the coming of Babylon, who will conquer Israel and drag the nation into exile. Pain and suffering are coming, and have already begun - yet the God of Israel says “Behold, I will do something new.”

And “new” doesn’t mean “bad.”

In the chaotic unknown of the wilderness, He will make a path.

In the dry and despairing desert, He will make a river.

He doesn’t end the struggle for His people, or rewind the story so they can continue living peacefully in their own land. The wilderness and the desert are still there. But He does something greater, mightier, and more unthinkable: He creates a new, good thing out of what was hopeless and dead - extending grace so far that it touches even the onlookers and the wild creatures.

One of my favorite verses in Revelation says, “And He who sits on the throne said, ‘Behold, I am making all things new’” (Revelation 21:5). I’ve always thought this was an end-times verse, a promise we cling to for the future - and so it is. But it’s also a now verse.

God isn’t waiting until the world as we know it ends to start making all things new. He’s been doing it since the dawn of time, and He is still doing it every single day in the hearts of people like us.

Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature; the old things passed away; behold, new things have come.

2 Corinthians 5:17

My God is doing a new thing - a new, good thing - right now. He isn’t (yet) rescuing us from this earthly domain or rewinding the consequences of sin, but He is doing something greater, mightier, and more unthinkable: He is creating something beautiful and new out of that which was old and dead.

He is making rivers in the wilderness and streams in the desert.

He started this work all the way back in the Garden of Eden, with a new plan to reveal His glory by reversing the curse of sin. He created a river of life through our wilderness of death with His own Son’s blood, available to anyone who would drink from it. He resurrected His Son’s dead body back to life and glory, and now He is doing the same thing in my heart, and in yours.

But if the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit who dwells in you.

Romans 8:11

This is what I cling to as I stand with some trepidation in the doorway of this new year. In God’s work, “new” never means “bad” - it’s always part of the glorious and gracious transformation from death to life. The suffering may not yet end, but we stand right now at the beginning of our eternal lives, and He is already working here and now to make all things new.

who do you say that I am?

One of my favorite stories in the Bible - and one I’ve written about several times before - is the disciple Peter’s confession of the Christ in Matthew 16.

Now when Jesus came into the district of Caesarea Philippi, He was asking His disciples, “Who do people say that the Son of Man is?” And they said, “Some say John the Baptist; and others, Elijah; but still others, Jeremiah, or one of the prophets.” He said to them, “But who do you say that I am?” Simon Peter answered, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” And Jesus said to him, “Blessed are you, Simon Barjona, because flesh and blood did not reveal this to you, but My Father who is in heaven. I also say to you that you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build My church; and the gates of Hades will not overpower it. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven; and whatever you bind on earth shall have been bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall have been loosed in heaven.”

Matthew 16:13-19

I think this story has especially hit home for me in the last year or two, because wherever I go and whatever I do, I seem to hear echoes of the same question: “But who do you say that I am?” It’s a query that inevitably becomes louder and more urgent when life grows darker and more uncertain, because the answer holds the key to everything - literally. As A.W. Tozer famously said, “What comes into our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us.”

Why is that? Because how we define our God, how we identify Him, will inevitably define and identify us.

It was only when Peter said “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God” that Jesus replied, “I also say to you that you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build My church.”

Peter’s whole identity hinged on how he identified his Lord, right down to his future calling, his spiritual power, his brazen courage, and his eternal hope.

God has been asking me: “Who do you say that I am?” I thought I had answered this question before, but in reality I was still answering the first question - “Who do people say that I am?”

People say You are Yahweh, the perfectly loving and perfectly holy God of Israel and King of the universe. That’s what I’ve always learned, that’s what I read in the Bible, that’s what I was told in Bible school.

“But who do you say that I am?”

I wish that my answer to this question was always as confident as the other - even when I’m lost in worry and fear, or even when I’m walking through the valley of the shadow. But many times it isn’t (and clearly, if we keep reading in the Gospels, neither was Peter’s).

I may not achieve a perfect, unfailing faith in this life, but there is one place I know that I can turn when my answer to this question is shaky or, God forbid, untrue. And that is to the Word of God where He has chosen to reveal who He is - where He has painted a picture of His character using the vivid colors of His beautiful attributes.

I believe that the Bible is the story of who God is. That’s why I value it so much, and why I am still hungry to read it after six years of nonstop study. I am hungry for the true answer to this all-important question - the answer that never fails, even when I do.

How we see God is an inextricable part of our identities. Are we going to be people of fear who see God as angry and vindictive? People of shame who see God as distant and judgmental? Or people of faith who know that God is, for reasons we can’t possibly comprehend, truly compassionate toward every facet of our being and lovingly sovereign over even the minute details of our lives?

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Who do YOU say that He is?

Maybe God is asking you this question too. Maybe you don’t know your answer. If that’s the case, I’d love to have you join me in reading through the Bible in 2019. It’s a 180-day challenge that will guide you from Genesis to Revelation with a focus on who God is as He has revealed Himself in Scripture. You can sign up easily below, or learn more by clicking here.

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