Useless

Useless

There has been a theme coming up over and over again this past week, and generally when that happens it’s time to sit up and take notice. This time it came in the form of a “little known fact,” and that fact is: Satan lies. Mind boggling right? He lies! He is a liar. He invented it. It’s his native language. All lies in the entire universe find their origin in him. And he doesn’t just lie once, or once in a blue moon. He does it EVERY DAY. Some of the lies he tells us are universal. Some are personal. But all are repeated and reinforced as time goes on. The really unnerving thing is that we don’t even recognize many of them. They sound like culture, or they sound like reason, or they sound… true. We wake up in the morning to find a pimple has bared its ugly head on our face and he leans in and whispers, “Gross! Look at that thing! It’s so ugly. You’re so ugly. You’re gross. You need to hide it! You need to hide.”

Some lies are smoke screens to hide bigger lies; some reinforce core lies; some are buried so deep beneath everything else we’d never even know they were there. And those are the truly dangerous ones. The ones that lay close to our core—the ones that were rooted long ago and have sat festering under everything else, robbing us of joy, peace, love, contentment, etc. It takes some digging to find those lies, but DIG WE MUST! If we want any sort of freedom in this life, we need to carve those lies out and expose them to the light to show what they truly are! Lies!

My own digging started because of a lesson I did at church with the Youth. We were talking about how God views us. (Priceless works of art, worth saving, with function and purpose—see Ephesians 2:10) And I realized that even though I said it, I didn’t believe it about myself. Red flag. So today I asked the question: Why? Why didn’t I believe that to be true? And what did I believe? (A really good question, because I find that I often don’t know right away!) What did I feel was true? (Oh I could go onto a side tangent about feelings here! How feelings are based out of perception and can be very authentic, but lie to us. They’re good because they work like the nervous system: they communicate that something is going on—but don’t always indicate what that is. Anyway, back to my original point…) I realized (after a lot of digging) that I felt unloved and lonely. Why? The God of the universe loved me. And he said he would never leave us. But I realized I didn’t believe that was true either. Red flag number two. What did I believe? I believed that I was a screw up… okay, but the world is full of those… so what? That I was constantly disappointing God, and sure he loved me, but what if that wasn’t enough? What if he didn’t like me very much? Why would he not like me? Because I’m lazy. Why do I think I’m lazy? Because I choose to not do more. I run to entertainment. I run from pain. I’m deathly afraid of it. So I bury myself in movies and fiction. Why? Because in those things are worlds where I can feel like I am who I wish I was: that I could change the world… that I could change me… that I could speak out and take action and be persuasive and love people—and make God proud of me… so he would like me, because I wouldn’t be useless.

Finally my shovel hit rock. This lie that has been buried for so long: I’m useless.

Suddenly things started falling into place. Why do I have this NEED to know everything? Because I’m fighting the fear, the lie, that I’m useless. Why wasn’t it okay to make mistakes? Because I’m fighting the lie that I’m useless. Why do I struggle to believe that I’m a priceless creation of God and that he has plans and purposes for my life? Because I believe I’m useless! SO many things in my life go back to this one lie that Satan has been solidifying in me for a long time now. Every time I mess up he leans in and whispers “useless.” Every time I fail, “useless.” So I begin to fear failure because, “you’re useless.” I struggle to feel loved because, “you’re useless.” I stop trying because, “you’re useless.”

Interestingly enough, I don’t feel worthless. That word doesn’t zap me. Maybe Satan tried that one and it didn’t take. I don’t know. All I know is when I discovered the word “useless.” I felt it to my core. BUT that is not God’s name for me. And now that I’ve discovered the lie, I can combat it. Like the old adage goes, “knowing is half the battle.”

Alright. Now that I’ve gone supernova in my vulnerability (allow me to wink at those of you who know Brene’ Brown and her thoughts on floodlight vulnerability,) let me state this: Please do not pity me. And don’t feel the need to tell me how useful I am. That is not the point of this. The point is to expose Satan for who he truly is: A liar. And to ask you what names/labels has he given you that keep you in chains? Because I’m not the only priceless piece of art around here. You are! And if you don’t believe that, why not? God says you’re his poime (Greek) his poem, created to do good works that he’s already prepared for you to do. Paul says it is for FREEDOM that Christ has set us free. Stand firm then and do not allow yourself to be burdened again by the yoke of slavery. So we need to ask the questions. We need to dig. We need to expose those lies and treat them as such. Because God wants to use you. He wants to work in and through you. He loves you with an everlasting love. You are valuable to him. Heavens, we’re about to celebrate this in a few months! Immanuel: God with us. What Jesus came down to do was for the whole world, and that includes you.

Having said all that, allow me to end this with a prayer of Paul’s that I find most apt: I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have the strength together with all the saints to grasp how high and long and deep and wide is the love of Christ and to know this love that surpasses all understanding that you may be filled to the measure of all fullness in God. And now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than we could ever ask or imagine according to his power that is at work within us. To him be glory in the Church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. May it be so (Amen.)