Truth?

“We must cease striving and trust God to provide what He thinks is best and in whatever time He chooses to make it available. But this kind of trusting doesn't come naturally. It's a spiritual crisis of the will in which we must choose to exercise faith.”
― Charles R. Swindoll

     For weeks, okay for months, I have been overwhelmed by the deception of others.  Why do people lie?  You are probably tired of hearing about it.  I understand that people sin and have their own personal battles.  I sin and have my own personal battles.  But lying knocks me over.  Why?  I have been asking God over and over why He is showing me this.  Why is He allowing me to see the deception by people who claim to love and follow Christ?
     This morning, I finally got what He is showing me.  It is a huge lack of trust in Him.  It is a lack of knowing our true identity in Him.  We have to step out in faith, but people who lie on a regular basis have no faith.  They depend on their own manipulation to get the job done and often times they believe the job is for Him.  But they don't trust Him to come through.  They don't dare step out in faith.  Why is this lesson coming at this time?  Because I am editing my story, my book about my life.  Transparency, and trusting the Lord with that transparency is crucial for touching the lives of the unbeliever.  When I look at people who have been following Christ for over 30 years and who still operate daily on deception, my first thought is "God, what did you do?"  Why hasn't He won them over after all this time?
     I understand we all deal with doubt and unbelief at times.  It is hard to trust, especially if trust has always been an issue in your life.  But when a new believer walks through the door and sees a person who is supposedly following Christ but they are lying to get approval or whatever they want, it can turn a newby right around and send them back out the door.  Over the last few days, the Lord has been showing me just how damaging lying is to His Kingdom and how angry He is about it.  It's not the lack of trust that He despises so much as the lie spawned from that lack of trust.
     Transparency in the believer is what draws the unbeliever.  Our testimony is so important and if that testimony does not include trust in God, what good is it?  I can show you who I really am and trust God to protect me.  How many times have we heard another's story and identified with part of it and found freedom in that?  If what we are projecting is false belief, how are we to win hearts?
     So in editing my story, I have been tempted to delete parts that could set a captive free.  Those parts that only another abused person would understand.  Why?  Not that I want to lie about it, but that I don't want to be embarrassed or judged because this is personal.  I don't want to embarrass my kids and I do have to take that in to consideration.  But as long as it is truth and it is God's will, I have to believe I am under His protection. 
     The enemy has tried desperately to keep me from being open.  Fear of what man thinks.  But it is that fear of what man thinks that has kept too many abused people, abusers, sinners, etc. etc. from speaking truth and from getting help.  There is a difference between outright lying and deciding not to expose a part of your life, but if God says to expose it and you don't, isn't that disobedience?  Isn't that a sin?  We are as sick as our secrets.
     The enemy is the father of lies.  If we can't trust the Father of Truth, we are on the wrong side of this war.  Every time we tell a lie, the enemy places another chain around us, around our heart.  We stand before Jesus wrapped in our own deception and expect He does not see it?  He knows what Truth is because He is Truth and He has the key to unlock those chains and set us free.  All we have to do is muster up one seed of faith and trust Him.  Set an example.  As many as we can help, we can hurt.  But if we turn it around, then as many as we can hurt, we can help.


“Faith don't come in a bushel basket, Missy. It come one step at a time. Decide to trust Him for one little thing today, and before you know it, you find out He's so trustworthy you be putting your whole life in His hands.”
― Lynn Austin, Candle in the Darkness