I actually wrote this back in March and never posted it. Very timely.

I was driving today. It gave me a chance to think. I listened to some apologetics and some great music. I listened for a moment to my own thoughts and maybe even allowed the very thoughts of God to invade my own harried thinking. Solitude is rare in my life and must be embraced when available.

I have had a couple of weeks of thinking about the ramifications of truly believing a lie. A lie. That makes it sound like an impossible thing for anyone to do. How could someone believe a lie? Wouldn't there be a point in time when you would realize that you'd been duped? The problem is, most of us at some point in time believe a lie that we ourselves have told our own minds. Circumstances and events lead us to believe things that aren't true. We don't talk about them and continue to make our own assumptions and conclusions which seem to have a logical linear route. We only ask ourselves - Why would I be wrong about this? - when confronted with evidence that doesn't seem to line up with the conclusions we've already made. Oh, but that doesn't stop us; we are so much smarter than that. Our skillful depraved hearts just find a way to connect the dots in just the right direction to continue to keep the lie alive. It's more comfortable to believe what we've already believed for so long.

Yeah, I know how to explain it because I've been there. Don't be so surprised. You have too. It's harder to accept it in someone else though. People believing a lie tend to hurt those around them with their insistence on its truth and the blaming that ensues. I think one way to know that you are believing a lie is that most of what you believe about what is going on is that its not your fault; everyone else is to blame for what is happening and for the circumstances that you are in. It can be very subtle. I'm not saying that it's never someone else's fault; often blame really does belong to someone else. Any time someone is made powerless by the acts and words of someone else, abuse is reigning. There in lies another subtlety. Once the victim no longer allows themselves to be victimized, the abuse will stop. However that looks - a complete end to the relationship or healing - the victim actually has some power to do something about it; but blame has to be diminished, understood, and then refocused. Let me explain... The victim will not do anything about their powerlessness if they continue in blame because they are stuck. It begins with the victim blaming themselves irrationally and placing no blame on the abuser. As the victim realizes that they have some power, blame shifts to the abuser for the abuse. This is when the victim now sees that little piece of power they have to change their situation. If they stay in the blame state (it's my fault/it's their fault) they will stay put; stuck because blame leaves no room for action. I suppose that is a very simplistic explanation, but I think it holds some water.

You can't change anything if it's all someone else's fault and you can't do anything if it's all your fault. Blame is big part of believing a lie; no matter how you slice it.

This all got me to thinking about the past and its affect on today. Is there any sense in saying that something shouldn't have happened; that a decision was wrong? Sure. I can see that when something turned out wrong, or bad, or hurt those around you there needs to be responsibility taken for that. It's hard to move forward if the truth is not faced; if forgiveness is not sought and reconciliation has no place. It is said these days that you do the best you can at the time with what you know; you can not blame yourself for the mistakes you made since you didn't know any better. Is that really true? This is relativism at its best. Could not a murderer, one who steals, or an adulterer just claim ignorance and then all would be OK? Where would be justice and how do the wrongs get made right? This is a lie cloaked in nice sounding words and even those who believe in the sovereignty of God can get caught in thinking this way. Is it not true that an all omnipotent omniscient God takes all that is done in your life and brings forth what he had planned all along? Since I believe that God is totally in control, I can not take responsibility for my past wrongs since now they have been made right. Whoa. Something smells funny.

I guess as I thought about believing a lie, this idea of not dwelling on the past and moving forward - recognizing that you've learned from your past, so you must do better; and what to do with blame when wronged and when you've done wrong - needs to be given clarification and explanation that actually makes sense. I don't think I'm there yet; I'm still not able to put into words what it is that needs to be explained. But I think that God is working in my heart and soul on this as my life unfolds in this in-between place that I find myself in. this chapter is not closed and the past that is affecting my future is still percolating as my future has yet to begin the next phase.

Yeah, I know... it's complicated.

This passage helps me;

2 Corinthians 5:11-6:10
Therefore, knowing the fear of the Lord, we persuade others. But what we are is known to God, and I hope it is known also to your conscience. We are not commending ourselves to you again but giving you cause to boast about us, so that you may be able to answer those who boast about outward appearance and not about what is in the heart. For if we are beside ourselves, it is for God; if we are in our right mind, it is for you. For the love of Christ controls us, because we have concluded this: that one has died for all, therefore all have died; and he died for all, that those who live might no longer live for themselves but for him who for their sake died and was raised.

From now on, therefore, we regard no one according to the flesh. Even though we once regarded Christ according to the flesh, we regard him thus no longer. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come. All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation; that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation. Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us. We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

Working together with him, then, we appeal to you not to receive the grace of God in vain. For he says,

"In a favourable time I listened to you,
and in a day of salvation I have helped you."

Behold, now is the favorable time; behold, now is the day of salvation. We put no obstacle in anyone’s way, so that no fault may be found with our ministry, but as servants of God we commend ourselves in every way: by great endurance, in afflictions, hardships, calamities, beatings, imprisonments, riots, labors, sleepless nights, hunger; by purity, knowledge, patience, kindness, the Holy Spirit, genuine love; by truthful speech, and the power of God; with the weapons of righteousness for the right hand and for the left; through honor and dishonor, through slander and praise. We are treated as impostors, and yet are true; as unknown, and yet well known; as dying, and behold, we live; as punished, and yet not killed; as sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; as poor, yet making many rich; as having nothing, yet possessing everything.