Some point in my life I noticed that I was an instigator of relationships. It comes naturally to me to reach out and invite people out for coffee, or over for a meal. In my 26 years of marriage, we have instigated and hosted small groups in our home, game nights, or quick walks in the park. I often wondered why we didn’t receive many invitations to do things and tried not to judge it until I started to believe the lie that we weren’t valuable enough to invite.
This lie sent me on a path of bitterness. I withdrew and stopped extending invitations which just made me really sad and bitter because we lost the community that we grew accustomed to. Eventually, I had to realize and accept that my gift was to instigate community. I was the central piece that needed to stay in that active role if I was going to have rich friendships and offer the opportunity for others to enter that space with me.
I can’t fully explain why it is difficult for some people to extend invitations, if you have any insight please share them with me. But it got me thinking that if I can believe this lie, and have it strongly dictate my behaviors, I led me to explore other lies and their spirals so we can watch out for them in the future.
Believing lies are a misuse of our Faith! Believing the lies will:
- Keep you from seeing the good things that are right in front of you.
- If my husband brings me my coffee in the morning, or gives me encouragement when he sees me working hard, but a week ago he said hurtful words to me that I am holding tightly to, I can miss the blessing of my husband’s acts of kindness.
- Not accepting his kindness can cause my husband confusion because he may not know I harbor anger for what he said in the past.
- He withdraws and feels disrespected causing him to think twice before he seeks to serve me again.
- We develop a pattern of relating led by our individual lies and before we know it 5 years have passed and we don’t even remember why we don’t seem to love each other.
- Hold you back from growing healthy relationships
- Think about it, I may believe that my friends don’t care about me if I don’t hear from them for a few months.
- If I entertain this narrative long enough, other relationships will be tainted with the idea that I’m not worthy of friendship and it can lead me to lose touch with other good friends.
- From there, I lose confidence in my ability to create things at work, and perhaps even become deaf to the Holy Spirit’s voice.
- By now this lie has become so real to me that it becomes a prominent part of my identity.
- If I lose touch with friends, I can lose out on knowing them as well as being known which is such a deep need built into our DNA.
- Ultimately, this lie holds me back from reaching out, only to find out later that the reason they didn’t call me was because they were experiencing big challenges in their life, and didn’t have it in them to even ask for help.
- Stunts the growth that helps you move towards your calling
- If I believe that I don’t belong I will not enter into new places that will help me to grow
- When I don’t grow, I am unable to fully live out the calling God has given me
- I then feel distant from God because I am not honoring who he made me to be
- When I don’t use my gifts and talents to their full potential, don’t feel useful, and withdraw even further
- Ultimately, I will not be able to help the people (whether it is 1 person or thousands) that my calling was intended to help.
Keep a lookout for these lies as well as others in your life so that you can begin to address them so they no longer cause you to spiral towards hopelessness or disconnection. Trust me when I say there is always a way out, I’ve dug myself out of many lies so I know you can too.
