Preferring Illusions

Have you ever found yourself in a position in life where it just seemed easier to live a lie rather than face up to reality?

It happens to us all the time in a multitide of ways.  Don't want to find out where you are financially?  Just pretend everything is ok, keep smiling, and get another credit card.  Don't want to go through the hassles of getting to the heart of the matter with someone else you've been struggling with?  Just paste on another smile and don't talk any deeper than 'how's the weather?'

Don't want to get serious about your relationship with God because you're afraid that He will ask you to search deeply the things in your heart?  Just do your 'duty'--go to church, hang with some Christian friends, maybe read the Bible once a week, pray a little and call it good.

Sometimes it's hard to be real.  To face up to what's really going on.  It takes courage to stand, and it's so tempting to live with the illusion that everything is ok.  But is that enough?

Here is a question I was asked:  "Why, when I bring a problem to God, it just makes me more sad?"

Sometimes the beginning steps of healing take us through dark places.  When we are hit with reality, it can take our breath away.  When we have a problem we can experience the frustration that comes with it, but when we have to share it with someone else it becomes far more real and sometimes far more painful.

The same can happen when we 'get real' with God.  Confessing to Him our pain and our problems can be a hurtful thing because it becomes so much more real to us.  But this is a necessary part of our journey toward healing and health.

The Heavenly Father loves, yes loves when people come to Him with their real-life problems.  The things that are impossible to overcome; the things that you have struggled with, maybe for years, and have just had enough. . . .The things that have broken your heart and you are too afraid to go there again and would simply prefer the illusion of health. . . . .

Just listen to this:  "The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise." (Ps. 51:17)

Do you know what this means?  It means that no matter what you are carrying, no matter what your struggle or sin is, God just wants you to be real with Him!  In this circumstance, the most real thing you can possibly do is to offer Him your broken heart--not your strength, not your best 'Sunday Face', not your strategic plan, just your heart.

And He says He will not run from you, He will embrace you as only He can.

When you stop to really think about it--doesn't that sound so much better than living a lie?

Yes, it's true that being real with God can hurt, but that's only because surgery of the heart goes deep.  But the Heavenly Father is more than able to help you through into something so much better.

Here's hoping that illusions no longer satisfy. . . . .

BT