I Forgot About Grace

"After you have suffered for a little while, the God of all grace, who called you to His eternal glory in Christ, will Himself perfect, confirm, strengthen and establish you."
1 Peter 5:10

Until very recently, I didn't want to be responsible for my life. I wanted to be catered to and treated like the queen I thought I was. I was entitled and looked at what was lacking and how much better I deserved. I thought it was everyone's job to make me feel comfortable. Gratitude wasn't even a blip on my radar growing up. Even though I was taught to say thank you to people as a kid, it didn't sink in when people sacrificed for me that they were giving something up. Everything was about me. And I believed that I deserved all the things people gave me and more. It is taking a DAILY awareness of this to help me realize how much I need God.

I want to believe so badly that I can earn grace, so that I can learn to be perfect and not have to acknowledge my sin. But I can't. That's the point of grace.

The truth is that none of us deserve grace.

"For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God - not by works, so that no one can boast."
Ephesians 2:8-9

This is a hard concept for me to grasp on days when I think I'm awesome. I am slowly learning that everything good in me comes from God. 

I have walked around with a chip on my shoulder my whole life and thought that I must be special because God spared me and kept me alive after I tried to destroy myself for years. So I felt special. I was forgetting the part that He didn't have to. He chose to because He loves me and He chose to extend grace because that is His character.

"The grace of our Lord was poured out on me abundantly, along with the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus."
1 Timothy 1:14

When I get a glimpse of my sin, it makes sense why Jesus had to die - my sin alone would have been too much to bear. Anyone would have been crushed under its weight. When I get a glimpse into my sin and remember my depravity, I am so glad that's not the end of the story. I deserved death and hell and got a new chance instead - grace and forgiveness.

"For if, by the trespass of the one man, death reigned through that one man, how much more will those who receive God’s abundant provision of grace and of the gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man, Jesus Christ!"
Romans 5:17

Life is becoming SO much more precious now that I'm beginning to see it as a GIFT rather than something I deserve. I am learning that entitlement and gratitude cannot co-exist. And I am just beginning to learn the necessity of DAILY repentance.

Today, I live in His grace. That is a promise that will never ever become untrue. Christ has forgiven me forever, and there is nothing that can take that truth away.

"In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God's grace."
Ephesians 1:7

"But since we belong to the day, let us be sober, putting on faith and love as a breastplate, and the hope of salvation as a helmet."
1 Thessalonians 5:8

My Savior Knight in Shining Armor - Strongholds and Lies

When I was a little girl, and I felt unsafe, I would imagine that a knight in shining armor - a man who loved me and could heal my heart - would be the answer to all my problems. This was my addiction, thinking about my perfect man to right all of my wrongs and make everything right in the world. Whenever I felt upset, I would imagine this movie star life with him - a life where I wouldn't have to worry about money or any other person but my knight. I would be catered to and worshiped, and I would be protected because he was with me and had rescued me. He wasn't actually a person to me. He was an amalgamation of all the handsome men I latched onto in my fantasy world. His appearance wasn't what mattered as much as his heart. He always knew how to respond to me and would drop anything to be with me and save me. Thinking of this knight and this famous life was the number one way that I escaped the pain of the moment. It was my ticket out of whatever hell I was experiencing. It was my way to cope and protect myself. I would be famous and impenetrable - incapable of being hurt again. 

How do lies take shape in our minds? How are strongholds built up? A stronghold is any argument or pretension that "sets itself up against the knowledge of God." (2 Corinthians 10:5 and Beth Moore's Praying God's Word).

 "A stronghold is anything that exalts itself in our minds, 'pretending' to be bigger or more powerful than our God. It steals much of our focus and calls us to feel overpowered....it is something that consumes so much of our emotional and mental energy that abundant life is strangled - our callings remain largely unfulfilled and our believing lives are virtually ineffective. Needless to say, these are the enemy's precise goals." 
- Praying God's Word by Beth Moore

Unfortunately, I don't recognize the lies of idolatry until after I have a hysterical episode. Tears can be very healing and very telling. When I can't stop crying and cannot get my mind off of something, I know that my tears are about more than grief. Idols are not easy to kill. Especially ones that have been there since childhood. My mind is weak when I haven't spent time with the Lord, and that is the prime time for these lies to start to re-surface and the enemy to start moving in my mind.

The trouble with strongholds is that they look so much like truth that without daily time spent immersed in the Word (Truth) and in the Lord's presence, they grow from seedlings to oak trees in a small amount of time and can wreak havoc in every area of your life.

"Be alert and of sober mind. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour."
1 Peter 5:8

On the night that I relapsed after 2 and a half years of sobriety back in July, I was listening to the enemy more than I was listening to God. His voice was so slick and suave and it sounded more true to me than the reality of who I am in Christ. He was a serpent whispering in my ear, and I followed his voice right into the bottle.

He used an old fear of mine that was triggered by the end of a relationship - fear of being alone and unwanted, rejected and abandoned. I overheard a male coworker telling another guy that he didn't like girls with tattoos. 

And that was the trigger. I believed that my knight-in-shining armor was lost forever. 

I felt unwanted by Christian men and unwanted by men of the world. I felt hopeless and like the lie of being alone was coming true. And that started off a spewing of lies in my head that were sadly so much more true to me than God's Truth because I hadn't been immersing myself in the Word. Alcohol became the only thing that I could find "hope" in. After that, anything that hurt me that night at work became an excuse for me to take one step towards a drink. A customer irritated me - that was fine because I was going to get drunk. Somebody said something to hurt my feelings - the bottle would fix that.

When an old idol comes back to haunt you, it is hard to get it out of your head if you haven't been actively doing battle by soaking in the Truth of who Jesus is and who you are as a result. The enemy has had me targeted since I was 4 years old. He has tried everything to push me down and keep me from seeing myself through God's eyes. And he is not going to win.

Without Jesus, I get caught up in believing that I can do things on my own. I tell myself that I've got it, and then a week goes by, and I'm feeling drawn towards my old knight-in-shining-armor idea. My escape mechanisms become harder to pinpoint and recognize until the hysteria exposes itself for what it really is - a big fat lie gone out of control. 

The truth is that Jesus is my knight-in-shining-armor. I'd like to say that my mind has completely grasped that concept, but I am only just starting to see this as a lie. He has a lot of work to do in me yet. I have been jumping off the altar and off the "operating table," as a friend likes to say. 

What does it mean to jump off the operating table? It means convincing myself I can do this on my own. It means finding other things to do rather than talk to God. It means believing lies because that's easier and I'm used to them. It means pretending like nothing's wrong. It means HIDING, something that I used to do ALL the time. It means putting my sobriety before Christ.


Here are some more gems of truth from Praying God's Word.

"As long as our minds rehearse the strength of our stronghold more than the strength of our God, we will be impotent. As we pray the Word of God acknowledging His limitless strength and transcendent dominion, Truth will begin to eclipse the lies. We will realize that in our weakness He is strong and that as we bend the knee to His lordship God is more than able to deliver us." 

“You are my witnesses,” declares the Lord,
    “and my servant whom I have chosen,
so that you may know and believe me
    and understand that I am he.
Before me no god was formed,    nor will there be one after me.
11 I, even I, am the Lord,
    and apart from me there is no savior.
12 I have revealed and saved and proclaimed—
    I, and not some foreign god among you.
You are my witnesses,” declares the Lord, “that I am God.
(Isaiah 43:10-12)

Working through strongholds is a process. I wish that in one day I could pray this stuff out of my head but it requires healing over time. I need the help of the prayer team (ask me if you don't know what that is), DAILY time with God, therapy,  church community, prayer, eating, getting enough sleep, and choosing to live out of truth even if it doesn't make sense.

I'm hoping that next time around I spot this lie seed rooted in my mind before it becomes an oak tree.