Facing reality
Life can sometimes leave you scratching your head - would you agree? At times, it feels like I have a good grasp on where my life is and where it’s heading. But in other times, I have encountered circumstances that have left me with foggy glasses, blurring my vision. Sometimes I’m at a loss for words when trying to sort through and process where I’m at mentally, emotionally, physically and spiritually. I confess that I don’t always know what’s going on, what I need, or what the next best step forward should be.
In these moments, God delights in inviting us to process before Him, and to even wrestle with Him. You see, in order to have the abundant life God desires for us, we must confront life, despite our fears, with courage instead of masking, denying, or escaping from our overwhelming realities.
When was the last time you asked God to reveal to you His perspective?
In Plato’s Allegory of the Cave, he describes “people who have spent their lives chained in a cave facing a blank wall. They watch shadows projected onto the wall by objects passing in front of a fire behind them…The shadows are the prisoners’ reality but not accurate representations of the real world” (Wikipedia).
The prisoners didn’t get to see the truth behind the shadows. Though the shadows are their reality, true reality was found outside the cave and in the light of the sun.
Without the light of Christ in our lives, we only get shadows of what our true realities are - and many people are ok with that. But don’t we all ache to know truth?
Perhaps you have a specific situation in your life that God is calling you to face with courage!
I love that God has a strengthening love - a love that, by His power, helps us to press on and conquer our fears and to not shrink back in the face of our reality.
"When you fully experience God's love, you have nothing to fear. Such love has no fear, because perfect love expels all fear" (1 John 4:18).
Contrary to our every human instinct, God desires to take us by the hand and walk us right through our circumstances, helping us better understand His heart, the identity He has given us, and to process our experiences before Him.
Thankfully, what God offers us is a completely different approach than the escapism the world and its many religions offer to “live enlightened.” God designed us to face reality with Him by our side. The world’s diverse answers for healing are really just coping mechanisms that attempt to treat the symptoms of living in a broken world. Jesus knows our natural inclination to avoid and deny hard truth, yet He knows that facing the hard truth begins our healing, sets us free from being stuck in old and harmful patterns, and allows us to seek God to truly experience the abundant life.
Recently, I went to a women’s evening retreat at our church where the speaker said this: “Human wellbeing requires harmony with reality” (Jen Oshman).
Numbing ourselves into denial for fear of facing hard realities will only cause us further pain, leave us stuck, and keep us in the dark. God is our Light. Instead of numbing out, we can boldly approach God’s throne in our state of blindness. We can seek God’s help confidently knowing that God is faithful to meet us and shed light on our lives. He desires to help us process in the light of Who He is and His heart for the world. No one else promises the hope God does - what better, safer space to process life’s most painful and jolting experiences!
The God of the Universe humbles Himself to hear our cry, allows us to contend with Him, and is merciful to provide everything we need. He doesn’t rush us, He doesn’t demean us or our experience, He doesn’t demand that we dishonor the limitations we have as humans beings. He doesn’t want us to believe the lie that we can only bring a question, emotion, or circumstance before Him once we’ve gone and made sense of it ourselves.
When we pursue truth, and ask God to give us a better understanding of our reality, it cost us our pride. When we’re sincere in pursuing truth, we must humble ourselves and be willing to accept truth for what it is — not trying to change or manipulate it in any sense. But sometimes truth is hard to digest. Sometimes our realities are too painful to look in the face. In these moments, we can rest knowing that He Who empowers us to face our realities will also help and empower us to walk through what we are processing through. God shows His love to us by shining His light on our realities so that we can truly live.
The Good New is this: God has a strengthening love. It is a love that, by His power, helps us to press on and conquer our fears and not to shrink back in the face of our reality.
“For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love, and of a sound mind” (2 Timothy 1:7).