By When God speaks to our hearts we know it is the truth but how often do we have a hard time believing the truth with our heart? When the enemy speaks he is lying yet so often his lies are so much easier to believe. I spent the last weekend at a women’s retreat with my church which was AMAZING. I am going to give a little context here though. I am an introvert, retreats are not typically my idea of fun, I would prefer to find a nice space and sit and read and not interact with a bunch of women. Attending the retreat was because enough of my friends had asked me to go, guilted me into signing up (you know who you are) and because I made a commitment to go. To tell the truth, I was dreading the retreat in the weeks leading up to it. In my mind I was thinking how can I get out of going to this retreat, maybe I will be sick? Maybe I will have a work emergency come up? So Friday as I was driving up the hill to the retreat I was thinking ok God I am not sure how this is going to work, You know me God, You know that if I am around people too long I get cranky and possibly mean so I hope there is enough time alone so I can recharge. You know I am already tired so I hope there is enough resting time. I know I went in with the best attitude right? It is a good thing that God is so much bigger than my attitude.
We learned some amazing things and women shared story that is transformational. I hold story to a very high standard because I know that the bible says they overcame by the blood of the lamb and the word of their testimony (Revelation 12:11). I know that healing can come from story so I was happy to see that story was woven in. The first night my mind was so distracted that I cannot remember what the speaker spoke about, not that she wasn’t great and didn’t touch lives but I let myself be distracted and I missed it. But you know what, those Saturday speakers dropped something deep in my spirit that made more of an impact than anything I thought would happen.
Saturday morning, the thing I walked away with was, what is the lie you are believing? When we were asked that in the session, it did not take me more than 5 seconds to write my lie down. I like to be concise and so this was an easy one, because all the lies I could think of could be boiled down to one. I am not good enough. I know that this lie affects more lives than most because it is a shame filled, shame triggering lie that hits us right at the core of our identity. However, when you can identify this as a lie, you gain power over it. The speaker Saturday morning spoke about how we have a powerful enemy but a more powerful God. Saturday was nice, and that night the speaker said something that hit a chord with me. “God is bigger than the lie I believe and the enemy that throws it at me” (Shelly Juskiewicz). This caused me to think, because in the morning session we had been challenged to share our lie with someone out loud and I had not done this. I shared my lie that night and as truth was spoken over me I began to feel differently.
We may have lies that we believe but the Bible says in John 8:32 “And you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” There is freedom in knowing the truth and believing the truth of God. When you can walk in truth of who God has created you to be you are able to walk in freedom. So I challenge you what is the lie that the enemy is throwing at you? What is the truth God speaks over you?
