No More Lies: Creating Fertile Ground for a Healthy Identity

There was a little tingle of joy and fear mixed in my stomach. It was risky, but this was fun. "I can get away with this." I thought to myself.

I was 5 years old and too smart for my own good. Lying became a game to me, because I could always keep the lie just within the realm of possibility. When people believed me, I felt powerful. Though reality stayed the same, it was like I reshaped it. So the feeling got addicting, and I got out of my depth.

It was clearly too elaborate to last, but my story of a full blown theatrical kindergarten class production of Goldilocks and the Three Bears kept my parents going for a bit. Eventually teacher/parent conversations where had, however, and my charade crumbled, along with my desire to keep dabbling in complicated lies. This kind of ending proved exponentially worse than the fleeting glee of getting away with something.

My time as a liar taught me something, however. It taught me what Satan has to gain with lies: that little flitting feeling of power. Think about his existence: he is the perpetual prequel, playing out a story where we all already know the end and *spoiler* it doesn't go down so well for him. That is reality, and there's not a whole lot of anything he can do about that.

But lying - there's an interesting possibility. Reality still doesn't get changed, but my, my he can get us to act like it is.

If you're grasping at straws, kind of makes sense, doesn't it?

He knows we are worth everything to God, since God sent His very son to die for us, but what if he can get us to act like we are worth nothing?

He knows our beauty is written in the very fabric of our being, but what if he can get us to act like our beauty is dependent on our youth and weight, or, better yet, that someone else's beauty somehow cancels out our own?

He knows we are loved infinitely by pesky old God (always mucking things up), but what if he can get us to act like we have to run around hunting down love like an endangered species?

And that's worked for him with us lately, right? Not all the time, but more than you'd like to admit? (I'm the first one raising my hand over here.)

No more.

It's time for us to call him out for what he is: a liar. No more will we be letting him influence our perception of reality, because just like any daughter dealing with a bully, we're going to call our Dad.

And Dad scares this bully. Like, for real.

We are going to call Dad over and over and over again, every time that bully shows his ugly face in our mind, our mirror, or our screens.

We are going to call Dad about the little lies and the big lies, the half truths and the insinuations. Putting our foot down means getting Dad to bring the thunder.

And oh boy can he bring the thunder.

We don't fight lies. He does.

Sometimes we get onboard with fact that these are lies. Sometimes we even get riled up about believing better things about ourselves. But nine times out of ten (for me, maybe you're awesome and defy the stats) we fail to make lasting change to our identity. Time passes and the same lies bubble up and we are back to square one.

Why is this?

Simply put, I think our default is to try and fight these battles with lies ourselves. The horde of hell is coming at us and we treat God like a spectator, loving us from over there and if we can only get through these lies then we will reach Him.

Baloney.

That is total crap. The reality is that God is next to us literally dying to go in and fight for us. This isn't even some analogy. He literally died to fight for you. But are you treating Him like the B-team? Not probably intentionally, but in reality?

I totally do. It's horrible to admit, but it's the truth. I spend all my time jabbing at the lies with my little toothpick of truth and it doesn't take a master strategist to figure out that's not gonna get me too far.

It's time to lay our toothpicks down and call in the big guns. God fights the lies, it's just our job to ask Him to.

And that's what we are going to be talking about for the next few weeks here at Pink Salt Riot.

We are going to go on this journey together, encouraging each other, helping each other, and inviting God into our community to fight these lies where they live - in each one of us. We have lots of amazing resources coming your way to help you on your journey, and we really want to make sure you don't miss a thing. Drop your email right here and we will send you everything as it comes out!

So, your turn. Tell us about the lies you heard Satan whispering to your heart and tell us about how you let God into the battle with those lies. We can't wait to read your comments.