Brokenness Aside

Sometimes I can convince myself that I've moved past some issue...until it rears it's ugly head, showing me that I had pacified it, but not destroyed it.

I believe lies. I believe them easily, freely. I soak them up as truth and allow them to permeate my soul, my perspective, my worship. I don't know why, but I lap them up as truth, baptizing myself in them.

A friend sent me a text this morning: You believe a lot of lies. I already knew this but I had convinced myself that I had somehow managed to either hide that, justify it away, or "right-answered" it away. Wait, I lied to myself? Yup.

I can blame it on so many things, this propensity to absorb lies. I have been under attack for a long time. The enemy is cunning, seeking those he may devour and he has certainly found me to be a tasty snack. Just one quick deceitful thought and there I go down the path of worst case scenarios. He has been grooming me to respond to his lies since I was little when he would present me with the many awful ways a person could die and convincing me that it would most assuredly happen to me. He has upped his game, attacking me more personally, more aggressively. And because I've grown accustomed to his voice, I soak it up.

When my friend sent me that text this morning, an image and a phrase popped in my head. I am standing at the foot of the cross, facing away and the phrase "You wear your lies like a crown of thorns". And sure enough I see on my head this crown of thorns and bracelets of thorns and shackles of thorns, afflicting me, turning me away from Jesus. I punish myself for my perceived worthlessness by inflicting on myself what has been accomplished at the cross. I somehow feel like I should be the martyr because what he has done is not enough.

At the same time, I read in Hebrews this:

For it was indeed fitting that we should have such a high priest, holy, innocent, unstained, separated from sinners, and exalted above the heavens. He has no need, like those high priests, to offer sacrifices daily, first for his own sins and then for those of the people, since he did this once for all when he offered up himself.

Hebrews 7:26-27

He is enough. What he did was more than enough to cover over my multitude of sins and everyone else's too. So when I crucify myself, it takes away the glory of what he has done. Behold, it is finished. He is making all things new. He is making me new. May he change me to reject lies and to hold onto the truth of his enough-ness, his everlasting covenant that he made with me that day at the cross.

Because I am a sinner

If it's not one thing it's another

Caught up in words

Tangled in lies

You are a Savior

And you take brokenness aside

And make it beautiful

Beautiful