2

What We Believe

“ A t least I’m not as dumb as her.”

Those words were spoken behind my back by Derek in my sophomore biology class.

Derek was three times the size of every other awkward fifteen-year-old in my grade, a guy everyone feared. I was a shy, quiet student who barely opened my mouth. How could he possibly find me dumb? The thing was, I wasn’t dumb. I made all As and a few Bs with little effort—even in the most academically challenging classes.

I look back at that sophomore girl sitting there at the long science lab table and wish I could hold her face and tell her how not-dumb she is, but I’m not sure she would listen. Within an hour of Derek saying she was dumb, those tiny folds of tissue between her ears had built an entire case against her value, her security, her intellect, and her potential that would play on repeat for a decade to come.

A recent college grad with a degree in broadcast journalism, I was interviewing for a job at a news station. Two men from the station took my friend and me to dinner. They didn’t want to talk about the job; they wanted to get to know us. After realizing they were hitting on us, I sat there and thought, I will never be taken seriously in business by men. That thought made me believe I did not have anything to offer as a woman in business. I built a case against my education, training, and gifts that would affect me for years to come.

My husband and I found ourselves in one of our first real fights as a newly married couple. He ignored me, and I slammed some doors pretty hard. He moved on, but I couldn’t stop thinking, He doesn’t really love me. And my mind started to build a case against our marriage.

After losing my temper with my eight-year-old son, I lay in bed later that night and thought, I am failing as a parent. For years, off and on, that thought twisted its way deeper into my mind.

The thing is, I have always believed lies. And not just believed them but built entire chapters of my life around them.

I’m pretty sure the same is true for you.

Lies We Believe

My friend Christina, a licensed therapist, tells me that Psychiatry 101 teaches therapists that when you and I choose to believe a lie about ourselves, it’s one of these three lies we believe:

I’m helpless.

I’m worthless.

I’m unlovable.

Reflexively I tried to prove her wrong. “Seriously, Christina? Only three ?” I told her that I’ve been known to believe three hundred lies about myself—in a day.

“Nope,” she said. “Each one of those three hundred lies fits into one of these three.”

For the sake of argument, let’s assume that Christina is right. The question I have for you is this: Which of the three do you most relate to?

Is there one you’re more vulnerable to?

These lies— I’m helpless, I’m worthless, I’m unlovable —shape our thinking, our emotions, and the way we respond to the world around us. They trap us in their cycle of distraction and distortion and pain, preventing us from recognizing the truth we should believe. Most detrimentally, they change how we view God. Every lie we buy into about ourselves is rooted in what we believe about God.

Let’s say I tend to feel worthless and invisible. And let’s say I read Ephesians and learn that God, because He deeply loves me, chooses me and adopts me. 1 Even if I don’t overtly deny the validity of that premise, I still doubt it is true for me. I nod at the truth, but I never fully absorb it and let it shape my identity.

Then let’s say I am married to a spouse who is typically distracted with work. I don’t feel seen in our marriage, which confirms my deep-seated fear that I am indeed worthless and invisible. So even in the most inconsequential of arguments with my husband, I feel anxious and start to spin every time he’s short with me.

I can’t see all that he has on his shoulders, I can’t empathize with his stresses, and my needs exceed his ability to ever meet them.

Before long we are full-on fighting constantly, and we don’t even know why.

My husband now has become the enemy in my mind and can’t ever seem to say what I need to hear or be whom I need him to be.

And the spiral of my thoughts has now invaded my relationships and robbed me of joy and peace.

No human is ever meant to be the person who fills our souls or holds in place our worth. Only God can do that. But until I throw off the lie that God’s love isn’t for me, my emotions, decisions, behaviors, and relationships will remain twisted up in the mistaken belief that I’m worthless.

When we begin to think about our thoughts, perhaps for the first time, we can stop the downward spiral. We can reset and redirect them. That’s our hope. Not that we would wrestle each and every fear, but that we would allow God to take up so much space in our thinking that our fears will shrink in comparison. I love the quote from A. W. Tozer that says, if God is “exalted…a thousand minor problems will be solved at once.” 2 Sign me up. I want that.

Want to know a secret? We can have that. But please know that the enemy of our souls has no intention of releasing his grip on our minds without a fight. And let me tell you, he doesn’t play fair.

Here we are just getting to know each other, and I’m about to let you in on some of the worst mental hell I’ve experienced. I’m preparing you now because it’s heavy, and I don’t much like heavy. I like fun and happy things. But if I don’t take you into the darkness with me, then you might not believe me when I say that it is well worth the effort to face the recesses of our thoughts, believing that God can bring about life and peace.

I know this is possible, this shifting of our thoughts and in turn our lives. I know, because it’s happened for me.

But before I discovered the thought that shifts us from turmoil to peace, I experienced the all-out attack of the enemy.

Under Attack

It was my first visit back home to Little Rock in several months. As I sat in the passenger seat of my mom’s white SUV, I took in the familiar landmarks: my old high school, the Chili’s restaurant my friends and I had frequented after football and basketball games, and the pool I always swam in growing up. I was reminded of just how comforting coming home can be.

Soon we arrived at our destination: a Baptist church where I was scheduled to deliver two talks with a book-signing event sandwiched between.

During my first talk I swung for the fences with the women seated before me. I was bold and clear in my presentation of the gospel message. “There’s a real enemy with demons at his beck and call,” I told the few thousand women gathered. “He wants to take you out. He’s determined to steal your faith.” I ached for them to experience the freedom Christ offers and for them to refuse to sleepwalk through their lives.

After that came the book signing, with the expected hubbub. Afterward I somehow found myself standing totally alone, something I try to avoid at large events for the sake of personal safety. The participants had already headed back into the auditorium to take their seats, conference organizers were buzzing around, tending to details, and staff were all covering their various posts. There I stood in the foyer, just me and one other person, a kind-looking woman I didn’t know.

I realized I needed to get moving and find my seat ahead of the next session, which was about to start. I took two steps toward the auditorium when suddenly that kind-looking woman was in my face. Her expression darkened, her warm smile disappeared, and her eyes narrowed as she focused intently on me.

“We are coming for you,” she said in an urgent whisper. “You need to quit talking about us. We are coming for you.”

Her comments were so out of context that I couldn’t sort out what she meant. “Ma’am,” I said, “I’m confused. What are you talking about?”

With chilling certainty she said, “You know exactly what I am talking about.”

“I’m sorry?” I said, still seeking clarity.

She repeated, “Quit speaking of us.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said.

Again she said, “You know exactly what I am talking about.” But I didn’t.

And then I did.

I took several steps backward, turned toward the auditorium, approached one of the security guards who’d been asked to cover the event, and said with as much composure as I could muster, “The woman who’s in the foyer just made threats against me. Can you please keep an eye on her?”

Moments later I took the stage and began my last talk. Partway through, I heard shrieking in the hallway that ran alongside the large auditorium. The tiny hairs on my arms stood on end as I briefly paused. I knew exactly who was screaming, and I knew exactly what this was about.

Figuring the security personnel would take care of the distraction, I launched back into my talk. This was just a crazy woman making empty threats. I would go home and forget all about it.

Then the devil overplayed his hand. While the woman was screaming bloody murder in the foyer, the power went out. I’m talking all the lights, the entire sound system, the giant screens behind me—everything. We were silent, there in the dark.

Did I mention that this was a huge megachurch with backup systems for its backup systems? On a sunny day during a heavily staffed event, the power doesn’t just go out.

The screaming continued as we all listened, stunned.

“This has never happened before,” the pastor of that church would later tell me. “The screaming you heard was that woman you pointed out to the guard, and her daughter. What was that all about?”

Dang.

I mean, I proclaim Jesus and I believe everything He taught. He taught about the enemy and showed His power over demonic forces. The enemy wasn’t mysterious to Jesus. To Him, spiritual warfare was matter of fact. Jesus cast out demons regularly—that’s what the Bible says.

But while I believe that there is a real devil and that he has real demons working for him and that a battle for our hearts and souls and minds is playing out all around us all the time, I’ll tell you this: I’d never before seen such an undeniable manifestation of Satan’s work.

The experience could have been terrifying, but instead, it had a different outcome initially: it made me wild with faith. I vividly remember that night. I talked about Jesus with everyone who would listen, including the waiter at the restaurant my family and I went to afterward and my sister’s friends who happened to be in town. I was overwhelmed with how real and true it all was—God. Heaven. The enemy. This war we’re in.

I’d never before been as sure as I was that day: all of this was true.

Which is why the spiral of darkness that followed caught me so incredibly by surprise.