Tag Archives: truth

MOVING TO MALIBU.

 

Version 2

I’ve been really into learning from others’ stories lately. Obviously I believe in and love the Bible as God’s word (I have a whole post about it here, and a whole category of posts dedicated to studying the Bible here!). But recently I’ve been inspired to dig into accounts of how others have experienced Jesus. I imagine the early Church, who didn’t have the New Testament to read. They read letters from other believers like Paul and shared personal details of how Holy Spirit had moved in their lives. Thinking about it that way, it’s important to not only read the Bible, but also to get to know others and their stories about God. God is alive and well, working and moving in people every second of every day. We can see Him more fully when we listen to or read about others’ experiences and perceptions of Him, always comparing their views to the absolute truth found in His word.

Because of my newfound interest in others’ stories, I’m totally loving the Delight Stories and Devotionals book! Delight is a college women’s small group ministry that I’ve been a part of ever since coming to Auburn. I. love. Delight. so much. with all my heart and soul. I’ve made some of my best friends through this ministry, I’ve come so much closer to God, and everything they make is pink!

I was reading Haley’s (what a coincidence, huh?) story from their story and devotional book the other day, and this quote stood out to me:

I see it like this: say somebody gave you an all-expenses paid beach house vacation in Malibu, complete with travel, a car, food, and all the hip furniture and decor you could ever dream of. You could brag about your new lifestyle, tell all your friends, plan for it, and dream about it. But until you pack up and leave your current home, the new life is never really yours. You cannot live in Malibu and your current hometown at the same time.

Delight Stories and Devotionals, vol. 5

I love this picture of life with Jesus. God has given us the gift of salvation by grace through faith in Christ. When we believe in Him, our eternity and inheritance in heaven are promised, sealed forever, a 100% guarantee. He has given us the deed to His house in heaven. The rest of our lives on earth are us moving into that house. We’ve been given the gift of heavenly eternity with our Father, but we can start to live in that reality now. We own the house, so to speak, because it’s been graciously given to us, and we will move in fully when our time on earth is up, but we can start the moving now.

We can take our earthly mindsets and move them to a heavenly one. We can take our flesh caving in to temptations and transfer it to letting Holy Spirit’s convictions change our behavior. We can look at our worldly worries and trust God instead. We can excavate bitterness, annoyance, and disappointment in others, and replace it with purity, love, and forgiveness toward them. We can move from earth to heaven while our bodies are still on earth, because our spirits are already citizens of heaven.

True faith in Jesus is like a moving van for us on earth: its purpose is not only salvation, but also sanctification. Holy Spirit is gradually taking our earthly, sinful selves and replacing them with who God created us to be. That’s the moving. That’s us moving from our earthly reality, the death we were condemned to, to our heavenly reality, the one God created for us when Jesus died and was resurrected. We don’t have to wait for heaven to see this heavenly reality that supersedes our earthly one; we can move now.

Here’s the thing about moving in real life: it’s hard work. You have to haul boxes up and down multiple flights of stairs. If you’re moving in Auburn in the summer, you sweat. A lot. You have to leave behind what’s comfortable, which can be painful and lonely at times. Moving requires others’ help to lug mini-fridges and giant armchairs around. And let me reiterate: it’s hard work.

But Malibu is so much better than the broken-down shack. God’s heavenly reality is infinitely better than our earthly one. We have already received the gift of heaven, and it is nothing but that: a gift. Whatever we have to sacrifice to live in that gift now, is worth it. Moving may be hard, but Malibu is better.

Therefore, my dear friends, as you have always obeyed—not only in my presence, but now much more in my absence—continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you to will and to act in order to fulfill his good purpose.

Philippians 2:12-13

There are far, far better things ahead than any we leave behind.

C.S. Lewis

BREAK THE YARDSTICKS.

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If you come into Haley’s room and cuddle with her, she’ll want to talk to you.

If she starts talking, soon she’ll get emotional and start crying.

When she starts crying, her nose will start running, so you’ll need to get her tissues (usually a large box).

Once she has the tissues, she’ll realize that she’s thirsty, so you’ll need to get her a glass of water.

Once she has the water, you’ll need to somehow get her to stop crying so you can leave and go to bed.

If You Give a Haley a Cuddle, a modified version of If You Give a Mouse a Cookie

All jokes aside, I can’t even begin to tell you how many hours of sleep my mom has lost from our late-night conversations. One we had recently was no exception; it fit this poem to a tee, right down to the tissues. As I talked and cried, my mom noticed how frequently I was using the word “enough.” Eventually, she commented on it: “Haley, where are you getting your ideas of enough? Who gave you these standards? Whatever yardsticks you’ve somehow found for yourself, I wish I could just break them.”

Before that point, I hadn’t realized how many of my tears were coming from perfectionism and comparison. Because I wasn’t perfect, because I wasn’t like Everyone Else, or because I wasn’t perfect like Everyone Else, I didn’t feel enough. I saw myself as inadequate in my relationships, in how I take care of my body, in my academic and professional ambitions, in my walk with Jesus, in my living out God’s mission. I kept staring at the gap between where I was and where was perfect, frustrated and embarrassed at my inability to close it. I let that gap start to fill my head with lies about my identity and capability. And it all resulted from these stupid yardsticks.

The yardsticks of perfectionism and comparison will always be bigger than who we are and what we’re doing. If we use them to measure ourselves, we’ll grow exhausted, ashamed, bitter, and angry. We’ll end up exactly where we don’t want to be because we’ve strived and strived to get where we want to be but haven’t been able to quite make it happen. But the problem isn’t with us: it’s with our theres. We will never get there if our there is perfection and not progress, if our there is what Everyone Else is like and not who we are meant to be in this moment. The yardsticks get longer the harder we work to measure up to them.

I’d bet that if we dialed in to our thoughts and emotions, we’d all find perfectionism and comparison at the root of looooots of our problems. When we put pressure on ourselves to do it all, to be the very best, to be like Everyone Else or even better than them, we start focusing on where we’re not living up to those impossible expectations. We focus on the gaps we can’t fill instead of focusing on Jesus, who came to close the most important gap of all: the one between us and God. He lived up to every perfect standard so that we don’t have to, because news flash, we can’t. And the enemy wants to leave us striving instead of accepting grace. But that’s not what I want for myself or for you. I want us to experience freedom from the bondage of perfectionism and comparison. I want us to trust that our Savior has been perfect for us and made us perfect in Him, so we don’t have to live perfectly. I want us to live the life we were created to live, not by always trying harder, but by accepting our shortcomings and praising Him for forgiving them.

So today, I invite everyone into a process. It’s one I underwent in that conversation with my mom and one I continue in today. It can bring emotional, mental, or relational freedom. It can break the yardsticks. And even if you don’t believe me, it’s worth a shot. What do you have to lose? Here’s how it goes:

  1. Pay attention to the word “enough.” When you think or speak, where does it pop up? How often? Relationships are a common area that trips me up.
  2. Once you notice your use of “enough,” dig a little deeper. Why don’t you feel enough in this area? Is it because you’re not doing everything perfectly, or because you’re not doing it as well as Everyone Else seems to be? I sometimes don’t feel enough in relationships because I think I’m selfish or think that I don’t feel all the right emotions.
  3. Trace it back to the yardsticks. This is my favorite part, where the truth comes in. Realize that your yardstick is impossibly big… and realize that God’s love and grace for you are so, so much bigger. Acknowledge your yardsticks of perfectionism and comparison (or both), and then tell them: You are not realistic. I will never measure up to you, but I don’t have to. Because I have a Savior who’s already measured up, and because of His grace for me, I measure up, too.
  4. Break the dang yardsticks. Snap. them. in. half. If you need to, do what I did: march out to Home Depot, buy a yardstick, break it, and hang it up on your wall. Reinforce the truth that you are enough by living like it. Repeat the truth over and over, every single day, until it speaks louder than the lies of perfectionism and comparison. The best way to do this is to fix your eyes on Jesus. When you look at Him instead of the gaps between who you are and who you want to be, it becomes clear that God does not see the gaps when He looks at you. He sees His son or daughter.
  5. Repeat as needed. Even as I type this post, it seems similar to others I’ve written before. And that’s because it is, because I’ve struggled with perfectionism and comparison a ton in my mere twenty years. Yardsticks creep into my brain when I’m not paying attention. The enemy is sneaky. His lies take root in my mind and start to look like truth. And when that happens, I need to say enough with the not-enoughs, because I am enough as a daughter of the King. And you are enough, too.
  6. Help a brotha out. (I’m guessing I should never use the word “brotha” again.) Sure, we can try to take out the lies on our own, sit down with a journal and cup of tea until we’re believing truth again. But I don’t know if I ever would have realized my issues were stemming from yardsticks if my mom hadn’t pointed it out. We need one another. We need other people to speak truth to us, and we need to speak truth to other people. It’s certainly not a substitution for believing truth ourselves, but oftentimes, others can see our yardsticks much more clearly than we can. It’s so much easier to break those yardsticks together.

I hope this helps someone who is struggling with perfectionism and comparison. And if that’s not you today, I hope you bookmark this post for a time when the yardsticks might come to get you. Wherever you’re at on your journey, I hope you hear me when I say: You are enough. You are enough. You are enough.

Now let’s break some yardsticks.

For by one sacrifice He has made perfect forever those who are being made holy.

Hebrews 10:14