The Lie: Part Two - Confronting the Lie That Fuels Our Misery

by Victoria Gaines
Published February 4, 2008

"My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever." Psalm 73:26 (ESV)

As a young believer in the 1980's I set out with great enthusiasm for Jesus, agreeing with the Scriptures and doing my best to live for Him. I really loved God but misunderstood the Christian life. Disappointment soon followed. Failed attempts to 'do right' and spiritual exhaustion plagued me for years before I could understand my spiritual condition.

The Lord got my attention through recurring depressions. "I can't keep going like this," I'd pray.

"That's what I've been trying to tell you," He seemed to say.

But I didn't get it.

It took me a long time to realize that perfectionism is rubbish in God's economy. I can't live the Christian life on my own. People-pleasing, striving, and following religious rules to impress others is not exactly genuine spiritual fruit. The striving got to me. The young woman that others saw in me might have appeared efficient, good-natured, giving, faithful, and God-honoring, but I was tired of trying to measure up.

All the while, another storm was brewing.

The enemy threw a pity party in my honor and invited me to all my past childhood abuse issues. Things once settled at the Cross now loomed large under my emotional microscope. As lies wormed their way into my thinking, I embraced them all. Self-deception is so pernicious. If I felt like nobody cared, that's what I believed. If I felt like the Bible wasn't useful for my situation, which is how I felt most of the time, I believed it. Soon I had lumped God in with everyone else---they hadn’t done much for me lately; neither had He. I decided to just do the best I could.

Sharing the secret of my abusive past connected me to other survivors. It also caused me to feel special in an unhealthy way. I built an interior kingdom around everything abuse-related and rode the recovery bandwagon for all its worth. Certainly, I didn’t deny God, but neither did I trust Him. I grew increasingly distant from the Lord, but close to my therapist. I quoted her all the time without questioning her half-baked theology. When she said the Bible didn't help folks in my particular situation, I nodded. After all, she was a professing Christian with impressive counseling credentials.

I read compulsively about my diagnoses (major depressive disorder, post-traumatic stress syndrome...you name it, I had it) and my new-found identity (abuse survivor) rather than go to the Lord for healing. Truth is, I didn't know God very well back then. Educating myself seemed the obvious road to freedom but instead it kept me consumed with self. Knowing ‘about’ Christ couldn’t sustain me because I wasn't abiding IN Him.

Books and therapists encouraged me to get well by dealing with my “issues” before tackling anything spiritual. I had it all backwards. Psychology and psychiatry fed me heresies and half-truths, and fostered my dependence while I nearly drowned in a sea of psycho-babble.

Life became all about therapy, support groups, books on abuse, seminars on abuse, tapes on abuse, and other survivors of abuse. The more I focused on abuse, the lousier I felt. My pain escalated. I felt hopeless and blamed it on God. I avoided the very friends who might speak words of wisdom to me. I dreaded their company, especially if they talked about the Lord. While I relished my distortions, I felt trapped in a system that wouldn't let me go. Therapy dug its claws in me. If I missed one appointment, I’d suffocate in my own emotions. All those sessions promised recovery but only as much as I was willing to 'work' on my own healing. So there I was, burned out on religion, and now burned out on therapy, too.

The lies spun a thick web around my heart, but the biggest lie is always this…that God is not enough for what I’m going through. I need all these other things.

Because of that lie, I’d placed my trust in all the wrong things.

This is the lie that fuels our misery: God and His Word aren't enough for what we're going through. Have you ever felt that way? When we feel that our situation is worse, our needs are different, etc. – these are lies, too. And as long as we believe this way, we impede our own healing. I couldn't experience the life-changing power of the Holy Spirit and recover from my past because I wasn't willing to rely on Him. I insisted on my own way and wallowed in mental illness for the attention it afforded me through counseling. It also gave me an excuse to avoid responsibility whenever the fear set in. I absolutely believed that I would never function without the aid of my counselor, my therapy, and my circle of survivor friends.

But God amazed me.

He began to remove my crutches, one by one. He confronted me about the lies. He gave me a chance to trust Him with my pain. It was unsettling to experience change at first, but I had cried for mercy from the Living God. If He didn't come through, I knew I'd die. So I turned to Him, not knowing what He would do. It felt terrible at first, like anything BUT mercy, but the Lord does everything well. His grace moved in and worked deeply in my heart, step by step, from that point on.

In order for God to establish me in truth, He had to yank out everything that was sinking sand in my life. As I responded to grace by daring to believe, the suicidal thoughts stopped. To this day I'm still utterly amazed over the power of Christ to set me free. He has dealt bountifully with me. When I go to the Scriptures these days, I want to cry out HOLY, HOLY, HOLY! Lord God Almighty! I know my Redeemer lives! It was my Redeemer who set me free, not recovery tools. Only in Him do I live and move and have my being. Therapy can’t hold a candle to that.

So, is God enough?

You'll have to experience Him for yourself. For the one who believes and puts her complete trust in Him, Christ is MORE than enough. No trials, difficulties, or "diagnoses" in this life---neither past, present, or future---will ever be greater than Christ our Lord. Life is hard, yes. But if we're rooted and grounded in Him, our Source for life and sustenance, we have everything we need for health and happiness in Him.

Oh, that we would never glory in our troubles, but trust the One who overcomes them all.

Christ is my healing. I pray He will be your healing, too.

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