First – this is a very faith-based post. My faith is probably the most personal thing in my life. I love talking around it and sharing what feels good, but faith brings out a part of me that I normally prefer to keep to myself. I don’t like opening the door for people to try to influence me away from it. This is what I believe. Some won’t like it. So there’s the warning. Take what I write about my faith, and glean from it what resonates with you.
Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it.
-Proverbs 4:23
Know what I hate? I hate when people hold a mirror up on me. It always invokes a sense of self-defense. Always. It can be the kindest reminder, the gentlest encouragement, or the harshest of rebukes. I will put up a defense so fast that I don’t even realize I’m doing it. How dare someone call me out like that — calling me out, coming alongside me, dare I say admonishing me…and yet every time, they’re 100% correct. Every damned time.
You know why it’s hard to accept what I see in the mirror? It doesn’t just show what I’m doing wrong. It doesn’t just give a glimpse at what my actions are. It shows what my heart is focusing on. Someone shows it to me, and now I see it, and here come the excuses. “I used to be good. I used to be a faithful believer. And people hurt me and I changed –” Is God going to dismiss my behavior while I go over everything I used to be or do without inspecting my present self? Is He going to give me a pass because I dealt with a lot of vile people? Spoiler alert: no, He won’t.
I’ve written over and over how I’ve dealt with the pain and aftereffects of what 22 people did over the course of my life — I am still of sound mind, even when I am preoccupied with losing folks. I still have the option to open the faith basket and close up the fear basket. Except I forgot the faith basket existed because people told me I no longer qualified to fill a seat in the house of God.
Jesus himself said in Matt 23:13 “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! You shut the door of the kingdom of heaven in people’s faces. For you don’t go in, and you don’t allow those entering to go in.“
They won’t go in themselves, and yet they say you can’t go in either. Something about you says “oh no, they’re right.” Something within you acts like David did when his very son betrayed him. When Joab eventually killed Absalom, David wept for his son because they were connected at the heart, and Joab held up that mirror. He said David, you bring us shame! You love who hates you and hate who loves you – I see now, you’d be happier if all of your commanders were dead and Absalom were still alive!”
Is this not exactly what I’ve been doing in my life? I’ve spent so much time letting others tell me where my heart should be or where I can no longer go that I’m willing to listen to anyone who seems convincing enough. It’s no wonder I become defensive and make excuses as soon as someone with sincere motives throws a mirror up on me. I love what continues the pain, because it has been connected to my heart. I hate what wants me to heal because it is foreign even though I know with all of my heart that it is what loves me that sets me free.
God didn’t send me gatekeepers. He sent stars in the darkness. I’ve been focusing on the darkness for so long that I never noticed the difference. I’d find a breakthrough in therapy, I’d be so excited about it, but my heart was still not in the right place. Out of habit, I’d slowly revert back to where I was. Layers would remove themselves as I learned to hate what was destroying me. I stopped consuming alcohol. But my heart was not in the right place, so habits would return. I stopped disregarding my needs. I stopped being okay with “just okay.” But my heart was still not in the right place. I was always looking for someone to approve of the work I was doing.
Because all that stuff has to go. It’s not okay to accept things as they are. It is not okay to love people up and down inside out from here to the end of the earth and expect them to tell me that I am worthy and reassure me and validate me. It is okay to love people all day long, as this is the number two commandment. But like me, they also are commanded to love God with all their heart. It’s not my calling to love God as they see fit. It isn’t my calling to make sure they’re loving God as I see fit. My calling is to make sure I am loving God as He sees fit…and to make sure I can share my story in a way that others can learn from me.
With every layer of destruction removed, a new layer of strength emerges, a new layer of courage. Of hope. Of perseverance. And when one layer says “God’s looking for you,” you don’t stop and think about it first. You don’t hold up your hands and say “I’m too busy,” no. You drop everything and face the wall with Him. Just like Hezekiah did.