Look In: Becoming Aware of What's Happening InsideSample

Day Two– Discovering Agreements

Devotional   

I was around seven years old when I learned how semi-believably I could impersonate a pop singer. I’d require my parents to pretend to believe this. As the youngest of three girls (my sisters were six and eight years older), I often served as their real-life Barbie doll. If they wanted me to star in their home movies, I was unquestionably at their service. From a young age, I told myself I was accepted and loved because of the way I performed. What my sisters meant for no malicious intent began my agreement to a lie: If I perform well, others will love me. Others will accept me. Others will deem me good and worthy to know. 

When I think back to my youth and the times I agreed with statements spoken over me--or when an uncomfortable silence would make its appearance after a nasty sibling fight, I remember quickly filling in gaps with the conclusion that I was the problem. That I just hadn’t performed well enough in that moment to be lovable. 

And truthfully, at that young age, I didn’t know how to determine where my worth should or should not be found, for I saw results instantly when I performed, and those results seemed valid. I was learning by the response of others, and it felt like love when I did things right. With applause came feeling accepted, and feeling accepted deemed me lovable. Performing was a counterfeit of love--and still, sometimes, that counterfeit feels more real than what true love is. 

In order to face our agreements and bring the right friends, family, therapists, and God into these spaces, we must identify where we have been giving parts of our heart to the wrong places. It can be excruciating to consider being vulnerable with anyone, let alone God. Your idea of God might have been that he’s a punisher. That he’ll cause harm to you if he hears what you’ve done or what you think. If you grew up in a Christian household like I did, you could just be so numb to Christian verbiage that it no longer has meaning to you. Or it could be that the words you have been around in your Christian faith were used as weapons to control you rather than tools to comfort you. Maybe you--like me--have at times mistaken Christians’ views as the same views God has of you. Can you think back to when you were young and pinpoint a lie that became something you agreed with and overtime began to live out?    

Identifying our agreements and bringing them in complete surrender is exactly what the Lord desires. He wants that invitation to process with you. So, write down your agreements, hold out your hands, and pray: 

LORD, these are what I think. I give you these thoughts. These statements that I have been living from. Teach me what you think of me instead. 

Prayer:

Lord, I pray that you will guard my heart. I pray that you will replace my thoughts with your thoughts. Lord, I pray that you will intervene with truth. I pray that your voice will be loud. Louder than the lies I have been living in. I want to know what you think of me, Jesus. Amen.