More Lies?!

|| Lies I’ve been facing in my ministry journey so far.

The beginning of March brings for me the comfort of finally feeling at home in a city I never thought I’d call home earlier in my life. I’m half way through my new job and with that has come many thoughts and questions of anticipation and sometimes, anxiety.

Am I good enough for the job? Will I see God at work? Is God even using me?

As it turns out, working in ministry has a funny way of making you see just how sinful and broken you really are.

Truth be told, I’m not good enough for the job. As one of my good friends bluntly put it: After all, God can use a donkey (Numbers 22:21-39). I might see God at work. God is using me, but I won’t always see the results (John 4:37-38).

But this is why we run to God for absolutely everything.

It’s easy to become bitter and blame God for the trials we face – especially if we view Him as some sort of a genie who will grant us all of life’s blessings. God blesses us, but he doesn’t promise a life without suffering. I’ve noticed some childhood lies and wounds I mentioned in 2 of my blogs (linked below) resurfacing in my life:

God is not in control
I cannot trust God
I don’t belong here.

I know, I write about lies a lot and you might be thinking, “you’re writing about more lies?” 😛 But the truth is, the enemy will always be trying to get us down with lies. He truly is the “father of all lies” (John 8:44).

As I’ve been praying, my eyes were opened to the fact that I am living in constant fear that God is not in control, and that even if He is, I cannot trust him because He will just end up taking away people I love from me. This lie emerged after the sudden deaths of so many loved ones in my life in 2019. I also believed these lies when I was raising support and I expected God to send me to Montreal in September. When I wasn’t able to go, I believed God had failed me, even though I knew He couldn’t because, well, He’s God and He’s perfect.

And then, when I got here, I began to feel like God was not using me at all, and therefore, I must’ve messed up in hearing him or something and I wasn’t supposed to be here. This particular lie came into existence when I felt like I wasn’t “helping” anyone, or teaching anyone anything, and when I didn’t see more Quebecois come to Christ. The French culture also has a way of shaming those in subtle ways who don’t speak French, and they are quite bitter about past church experiences. After a few instances, I began to think “I don’t speak French, I don’t have any close friends here… Therefore, I do not belong here”.

Notice how all these lies came from feelings. Maybe this is obvious, but sometimes our feelings are wrong. They’re not fact, even though I tend to take them as fact sometimes.

But a prayer I came to know and love, helped seep truths into my polluted mind:

Lord, teach me how to surrender everything – the ways I feel, and even the time of death of my loved ones. Teach me how to do that so I can live in freedom, and not live in fear of something bad happening anymore. Help me surrender my idealistic expectations and feelings to align with your will so that I can live in the freedom you offer me. May I remember how you lead me here and stay steadfast in the truth that you are using me even when I can’t see it, or feel it, and you are using even my mistakes. I declare that you waste nothing, Jesus. In your mighty name, Amen.

Not surprisingly, it’s actually a lot easier to surrender when I choose to recognize God’s truth: that there is hope, that nothing is wasted.

These are truths that I’ve “known” for a long time that have helped me surrender and trust God. Yet why do I still doubt?

Because God is constantly calling me to trust him in new ways. Trusting God this time doesn’t look like the last time I had to trust God because it’s different circumstances, it’s new and not what I’m used to; it’s out of my comfort zone – right where God likes to put us so that we can draw near to Him, depend on Him and lean into Him.

As many of my readers might already know, I am deeply moved by worship music often. A song that has given me great encouragement recently is a simple song led by Leeland called “Wait Upon the Lord”. The lyrics are so simple: “Come on, let’s wait upon the Lord, He will renew our strength”. You can click below to listen to it on YouTube.

I know the majority of this blog has been about me and my journey with these lies, but I also know they are no stranger to others too. In light of the rise of the coronavirus and the many catastrophes occurring around the globe, it’s easy to believe the lies that God doesn’t care about his people, that he is leaving us to suffer without any justice. But nothing is wasted, not even the most evils of evils. God will use that for good in the end. It’s a promise He’s made to us! (Romans 8:28)

If you struggle with believing that, here is an in-depth, easy-to-follow study of Romans 8:28 by John Piper that might help you!

John piper’s Romans 8:28

And I hope it brings comfort to know that I am praying for all my readers as you face whatever lies the enemy is throwing at you, and that you stay strong in the truth amidst the shaky world we live in!

With love as always,
Anna

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annamariesarah

2 responses to “More Lies?!”

Michel Desormeaux

June 11, 2020

(post note, these are just my thoughts, as always take the following words to heart, take them with a grain of salt or consider the following 😛 😀 )

“Truth be told, I’m not good enough for the job”

– You can only do the best you can do, people will have different expectations depending on their standing and view on the job, try to not let that affect you. I do this by instead of thinking the current task im faced with is job oriented, I place my mind as if im helping that person out that way if anyone say anything it doesn’t cross my mind 🙂

“It’s easy to become bitter and blame God for the trials we face – especially if we view Him as some sort of a genie who will grant us all of life’s blessings.”

– I find one way that I view this (Since modern evangelize has painted that picture in a way) separate the trials of life from Christ. Ray comfort spoke the following.
Imagine you’re on a plane seated next to someone else and the flight attendant walks up to the guy sitting next to you and hands him a parachute and says “put this on, it will improve your flight”. So the guy puts on the parachute, but notices the weight of the bag, on top he also feel uncomfortable putting it on, but because he was told it would improve his flight, he keep on wearing it. As the flight goes on, he notices other passengers start to laugh at him and call him a fool and question his intelligence for wearing a parachute on a commercial airline, and a short time after that a second flight attendant comes out with a hot cup of coffee but being new to the job and new, looses her balance during turbulence and spills the coffee all over the guys lap and the heat scorches his leg! Afterwards the guy gets up, takes the parachute off and says “this thing’s only brought trouble, misery and pain! i’m never putting that thing on again”.
Shorting after the guy leaves, that same flight attendant walks by yet again with another parachute, but this time when she hands you the parachute she says the following “Currently we are 30,000 ft in the air and at any moment you will be jumping from this plane, put this on for the jump to come”. So likewise you put on the parachute and the same thing happens to you, the bag feel uncomfortable, all the passengers think you’re a fool, there’s turbulence happening during this and on top of all this, that same flight attendant drops not one, but TWO cups of boiling hot coffee on you. So now the question, do you take off the parachute even when you’re going though more trials then the last guy who put a parachute on?
You wouldn’t, the reason why is because of your motive behind why you put on the parachute, you didn’t put on the parachute to improve the flight, you put it on for the jump to come. Even if trials come my way, yet during those times I may or I will be asking “what’s going on up there 😛 ” but I also know verse like Matthew 6:26-34 and remind my self “this is just one piece of the puzzle called my life, God is real and since he knows the beginning of my life to the end his hand in on me like it was with paul and like it is with anyone else who is a child of his (this includes you), the day that I die is the day he will allow; not one day sooner or later, this i am content with 🙂

If he is for us who can be against us, Seek first the kingdom and all theses things will be provided, hope this somehow helped 🙂 also awesome blogs! keep them up 🙂

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1. annamariesarah
  
  June 17, 2020
  
  Thank you, Michel! That parachute analogy is a great one and will be easy for me to remember because it’s also kinda funny haha. It’s so true that others have different expectations, and that’s a good way of looking at it. And learning to be content in all situations is definitely key. Thanks again for your comment, and I hope you keep watching Ray Comfort haha!
  
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