CAN YOU REMEMBER the time in your own life when you knew you were on your own, that if you were to survive the circumstances that life had dealt you, you had to step up and take charge of your life?
Do you remember the decisions you had to make?
Can you remember the pain of feeling out of control, as if there was something you needed out there, and if you had it, you’d no longer be afraid? And maybe you could rest?
I was fourteen years old when I felt responsible for my life. I guess it doesn’t happen to most people that young in their life, but I also know it has happened to others even earlier. Children aren’t equipped to carry such a burden, but circumstances can make it so.
There is a certain loneliness that comes from being responsible for one’s self and others.
When one is a child, he also has limited or no power. While he’d like to be thinking about which sport he wants to play or which friend he’d like to invite to go to the movies, he’s thinking about the decisions within his control that must be made in order to survive the next day.
It is tough enough as an adult to make decisions about how to take care of one’s own life, as you well know. But the notion of making decisions about surviving the circumstances of life began much younger.
Those feelings of loneliness struck the first time in your life when you were afraid and knew something was wrong, and again the first time you felt ashamed or humiliated, maybe when you tried to fit in with the other kids in elementary school.
I clearly remember the days in which I made decisions about how to cope with my circumstances for those days were defining moments in my life. Each decision came with certain beliefs that ultimately formed my book of truth, “The Gospel According to Me”.
And even though I have amended my beliefs over the years, there are a few that I have held in the front of my brain as if in a file marked: IMPORTANT
These are stupid beliefs because they are not true.
Of course, they are stupid—they were conceived by a child. Nonetheless, I cannot deny that I still struggle to give them up, and even though I try to renew my mind with the words I read in my Bible, I often find my own book of truth trumping the Lord.
After I began this new journey through the wilderness, I thought God had changed. But because his word says he is the same yesterday, today and tomorrow, I could see I had never given up some of the lies I believed. Hebrews 13:8
Sometimes it takes a wilderness experience, where one is stripped of the comforts found in the life he built.
Sometimes it takes the quiet of a still existence to notice all the meaningless noise one left behind.
Sometimes it takes a journey through the things we fear most, in order to see the very real possibility that what we believed since we were children is contaminated with lies.
Sometimes it takes circumstances similar to those early experiences before we can know, ‘If that happens, I will die’ or ‘I cannot live without that’ is not true at all.
Sometimes, we must be broken before we can see how fragile we really are, even with the façade or fortress we cleverly built so that we would appear powerful and in control.
Sometimes we must feel the pain and suffering we did as children, when those bad things happened, in order to get to the truth about who and what we really are.
It is in the wilderness that I faced my counterfeit strategies for survival, all of which were born out of the faulty beliefs found in “The Gospel of Self”.
It was the beginning of being able to see the purpose of this journey.
It is only by the faithfulness of a loving God that I can see that “If it is to be, it is up to me” is a big fat lie.
Turn to me and be gracious to me, for I am lonely and afflicted. Psalm 25:16
Ecclesiastes 5:10, Deuteronomy 31:6, Psalm 27:10, Romans 8:31-38, 1 Peter 5:7, Isaiah 41:10, Psalm 147:3
As always, it is my intent and hope that my words may encourage you wherever you are in your journey.
Please share your thoughts in the comments below or go to the group tab above to share your own experience. It only takes a minute of your time to register (and you can be anonymous), and your words may help others.
If anyone has ears to hear, let him hear.–Jesus (Mark 4:23)
