My Battle with the Father of Lies

Have you ever felt stuck?  I mean really, really stuck!?  Like, no matter how much you want to move, despite your extreme desperation to be free, you just can't seem to break loose?

Yesterday I was confronted again with a sin issue in my life.  I say "again" because this is not a new struggle. This was however the first time it was pointed out to me so clearly, so lovingly but firmly, that there was no denying it.  No excusing it.  No escaping the conviction and heartbreak and disappointment with myself.

Before I write any more, I want to tell you upfront that I'm not going to be specific.  So if you find your curiosity making you crazy and you're tempted to skip ahead to get the juicy details, you will be disappointed.  The details are between me and God.  And frankly, If I write about them then this becomes all about me, and your reading this becomes about nosiness and gossip!  And I know you aren't interested in that nonsense, right?  If you were, you'd be reading "People" or "Entertainment Weekly" instead of this blog...No, I'm not sharing for the sake of providing entertaining reading material.  I'm sharing for three reasons.  First, because it is helpful for me to think, pray, and process through written word.  Second, because I hope that in some way this will encourage and challenge you in your own struggles.  And third, because I am a struggling woman bound to this broken planet and I need your prayer.

Historically, my sin is greatest in my heart.  Maybe that is the case with everyone?  It is interesting that the sins in our heart are the easiest to ignore or justify.  If you are, for example, a thief or an adulteress, your sin will usually find you out quickly.  However, if you harbor bitterness, anger, selfishness, etc... in your heart, those can linger for years without anyone but God knowing.  They take root in your heart and little by little over time they squeeze the life out of you.  Or perhaps, they squeeze the TRUTH out of you.

Satan is the inventor of sin and the father of lies.  Sin and lies always go hand in hand.  If I believe a lie, that is sin.  More significantly though, when I choose to sin it is always because I believe a lie.  Maybe the lie is something as simple as "No one will know" or "It's not that big of a deal".  For me, though, the lies are more weighty.

I'd like to tell you exactly what the lies are that I believe.  There is always freedom in admission.    My problem is that I cannot clearly identify my lies.  I guess I've believed them for so long that they have taken root in my soul and squeezed the truth out.

I now have the difficult task of sifting through my thoughts, my perceptions, my worldview and discerning what is true and what is false in this particular area....and I'm not sure where to start.

This morning as I was contemplating all of this, I thought about my post from a week or so ago where I talked about turning up the truth in my life. Obviously, I didn't turn it up loud enough...Or maybe I did and that's how I ended up here, now?  Perhaps that was the Holy Spirit preparing me for this?  I think that if I cannot clearly identify the lies in my life, the best thing to do is turn up the truth again...and then when I begin to recognize them, I have to turn off the lies.

"O LORD, you have searched me and you know me.  You know when I sit and when I rise; you perceive my thoughts from afar.  You discern my going out and my lying down; you are familiar with all my ways...Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts.  See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting."
Psalm 139:1-3,23-24