7 Ways to Stop Believing Lies You Tell Yourself
Have you ever told yourself your life would be better if you were thinner, married, older, more social, etc.?
Maybe right now, right at this moment, you are wishing life would be so much better if you were over there. Right there…you know where your heart is aching to be.
I’ve been there too.
I thought my life would be better over there, and I realized it was a lie.
Let me share my story, it’s not a story that has been concluded in a pretty red bow; I still struggle with it.
I always thought I was made for great things: dreaming of being a doctor when I grew up. (I even played with my stuff animals as Dr. Julie.)
When I began college, I followed the course plan to get all the prerequisites of what medical school would need.
And then, I was married to my high school sweetheart my sophomore year of college and became pregnant before I graduated.
What If I Was Believing Lies?
I have spent the last twenty year, being fulfilled as a momma to five beautiful children. I have been blessed, and yet, I still have the drive that I need to do something great.
I’ve tried numerous things in the last handful of years. Given up. Tried something else. Failed, and tried something new.
It’s like a broken record of stress, hustle, frustration, and defeat.
While I have learned so much in the process, I’ve missed what I’ve been doing till now.
Indeed, somehow I’ve attached this end mark of “greatness” as the place to be while forgetting that I am already worth it right now.
What I’ve learned, in this push to be something great, once I get there it still won’t be good enough.
I won’t be fulfilled there unless I’m fulfilled here.
The lie that I’m believing is I need to be something great in my eyes before I have any worth…that it’s better over there.
The Lies You’re Believing
So friend, what lie are you believing?
Maybe you feel like life will be better if:
You were at a certain weight?
That cute boy gave you attention?
You were married….with kids…with a white picket fence?
The dream job was yours?
While all those things are blessings, they won’t fulfill you.
They might appease for a while, but your heart will ache again for the next lie that will make you happy (or at least make you believe that anyway!)
If you feel stuck in your life right now, I want you to take inventory of your thoughts and feelings and ask yourself:
What lie(s) am I believing right now?
Now, I’m going to have some of you who say, “Julie, I’m not believing any lies!”
Keep reading!
Where Do Lies Come From?
Here’s a news bulletin, especially if you’re a God’s girl, you have an enemy who has a target on you.
This evil one, he’s the father of lies, who comes to rob, kill, and destroy.
What that means to us is that he uses lies to rob and destroy our lives.
Satan tells us lies and urges us to believe them. Once he does that, we get stuck in life.
Here's a nugget from my life:
When I believe that I will only be worthy over there, I will try and try in my own humanness to get there.
And I will become frustrated, defeated, and stressed in doing this.
Look around you. So many people have fallen for the lies he tells them.
People are striving, unhappy, and tense because they want to be where their heart aches to be.
Over there where the grass appears lusher and greener.
Lies Cause Us to Miss Out
In the meantime, they miss where God has them right now.
We miss what God has for us right in this moment because we think it’s greener over there.
It looks so much greener, but psst…it’s not.
The same life remains.
The same struggles, hardships, and pain. You take the same you with you there.
I want to enjoy the present, don’t you?!?
I want to embrace who God made me now so when those blessings we ache for arrive, we can truly enjoy them because we realize our happiness, and worth isn’t linked to them.
If you think Satan just targets this generation, let’s go back to the Bible and see how he was pulling the same old ways back then.
(Satan has gotten really good with all the practice he’s had!)
Truth from God’s Word
One of my favorites in the Bible is Gideon.
In the verses of Judges 6: Gideon is hiding in a winepress below ground doing his work of threshing grain (you usually did it on a hill utilizing the wind) because enemies were waging against the Israelites.
The angel of the Lord comes to him and calls him “mighty warrior!”
Here’s the deal, Gideon saw himself as a wimp but God saw him so differently…and God sees us too, and He's for us!
Gideon was part of a weak clan and least in his entire family, at least that's what Gideon tells God (Judges 6:15).
Gideon wondered what he could do in his wimpy state….if he was bigger, stronger, braver, if he was further along (over there, then) he could do it.
Did you notice the lies Gideon was believing?
Those lies kept Gideon below the ground, hiding, and not stepping out.
However, God broke those lies and gave Gideon some truth by calling him, “warrior” and telling him that God would be with him.
God gives us (including Gideon too) the power to overcome the lies and the evil one in our lives.
God gives His Truth and His strength, and we don't have to be worthy of it because we already are!
(Luke 10:19, NIV).
19 I have given you authority to trample on snakes and scorpions and to overcome all the power of the enemy; nothing will harm you.
Replacing Lies with Truth
Here’s the deal: part of becoming the man God wanted Gideon to become was those moments of tossing the lies and putting on Truth.
Gideon also demonstrated that tossing lies is something we need to do over and over again.
Just like Gideon, friend, God sees us as we are.
He’s cheering us on too because we have so much potential but we create excuses because we think we need to be somewhere else.
7 Steps to Help Overcome the Lies We Believe
Ask God to help point out these lies.
Pray we can embrace the blessings and the present now.
Remember Luke 10:19 (it’s the verse above).
God is for us and will help us.
We can do all things even overcome lies (Matthew 19:26).
God knows what is best for us. He knows what we need even more than we know.
Enlist friends to be lie-busters.
Friend, if you’re stuck in life right now and you don’t know where to start, see if you’re believing lies instead of Truth.
God is for you, He can help you, and with Him all things are possible.
Remember these 3 R’s:
Recognize lies.
Recover the life you have, the blessings here and now.
Recommit to looking for the blessings, believing Truth and being fulfilled right here and now!
Julie Loos is the blogger encourager who helps you unmask the mess in your life and overcome it on the other side. She writes at Unmasking the Mess and you can find her on social media on Facebook and Instagram.
