Over-Ridden

Almost all of us have been there, and she is no different. On both sides, she is figuring out how to be Jesus to the broken people around her... some of whom I know as well. As we discuss differences, poor choices, and balancing grace with truth, something deeply profound occurs to me that just might shift our perspective about everything. 

This truth is further driven home to me a couple days later when I'm now listening to a Christian psychologist who is giving advice to someone in a marriage healing from addictive behavior. Among the many bits of wisdom they offer, the psychologist says that our brains are wired for such deep, basic, primal needs such as love, connection, acceptance, safety that it will even be willing to override the more cerebral parts of itself in order to get what it wants and needs most... which would explain why we sometimes find ourselves in places we never expected and we know are perhaps wrong or damaging to us but we go ahead anyway. The pull is just that strong.      

Suddenly, I'm thinking back to my conversation with my friend about her family issues and it strikes me hard: 

You can grow up in church all your life and sing all the hymn-songs and go to youth group and hear all the sermons yet... you can still find yourself in a crumbling marriage and pregnant by someone else other than your husband. 

You can say you know Jesus and lead a Bible study and appear to be everyone's perfect Christian, but still end up caught in an affair. 

You can work all you want to keep up the performance of being "good" in your life - and even get highly complimented for it! - and yet struggle in private with a secret sin such as pornography that you can't free yourself from. 

You can be the biggest over-achiever at work and have the corner office at some prestigious company... but still come home and drink one too many glasses of alcohol because you can't seem to quit numbing the pain from that tragedy that happened years ago that you don't want to make peace with. 

You can carry the best grades in school and show up for all the people you care about and start a charity or make a million dollars... but you can still be unhappy, lonely, depressed, rejected, and telling yourself the lie that the world is better off without you. 

See, we all come onto this planet with foundational needs at the emotional, biological, spiritual, and mental level that, if not properly and healthily met, lead to us bypassing our rational self and doing some stupid things that you sit back and wonder where on earth that came from. The truth is, even when we are drawing closer to Jesus, if we haven't brought those shattered parts and allowed ourselves to walk the journey of healing, the past - with all its traumas and trials - and the present - with all its unfulfilled dreams and hopes and pleasures - can be more compelling to our biological instincts that the truth of God Himself. 

Unless we have found a relationship with Christ that no other passion or pleasure can satisfy, we will continue to look elsewhere for those basic things that we all need and will do literally anything to get... even things that go against our better judgement or moral conscience. And many of these so-called "lacks" generate from childhood where, if we failed to be loved and received in community and family as ought, we end up being saddled with this perpetual driving need that we're always looking to have met through our whole lives. Even if we've met the Master and read the Word, it can still sometimes not be strong enough to offset those insecurities, lies, impulses, deficiencies that have made their home in your brain for all your life. 

At any one time, we're each creating literal neurological pathways in our brains that shape who we are going to become. Our brains are never stagnant unless we choose to let them be. That is why there is such power in the things we tell ourselves and let others tell us because we're either moving closer or further from the truth with every syllable. We're either slowly letting go of the untruths or letting the untruths go down even deeper. We're either letting the Voice who called stormy waters still our souls or we're letting the voice of the Accuser continue to drown over and over and stir our hearts into a tempest. 

So... where do you go from here if this is your story, your reality? 

You realize, foremost, that just because you let the Master down doesn't mean He's let you down. Just because you feel like a fraud, an imposter, a hypocrite doesn't mean that has to be your definition for the rest of your days. Yes, you may have disappointed many...including yourself... but the hope here is that your brain can learn another way. Your heart can mend. You can start over with Jesus. You may not be allowed to start over with others who hurt you or you hurt them too deeply. You may not be able to start over with judgmental know-it-alls who fail to forgive you and help you heal. But the heart of the Father is for your redemption. 

Psalm 103:14 says it well when it reminds us that God "knows how weak we are" and "remembers that we are only dust." The One who stepped down into time and space in human form understands and gives grace for our flawed humaneness. He gets it that we are imperfect. But the glorious reality and stunning hope is this: we are still forever loved, accepted, and adored by Him even in the face of our tremendous failings. When we come to Him in a repentant heart to make things right, He will never turn us away. Our sins may be numerous, but they are never too many to outweigh His mercy. 

And from that place of heavenly grace, we can then go a little softer on ourselves and realize that our attempts to gain acceptance, value, love, connection, and meaning are simply cries uttered from a deeper lack. Our failings are warning signs to stop our numbing, striving, hiding and listen to our own stories for what they truly are. Only when we have been able to make peace with the unfulfilled places in our lives can we then admit that we need help: that we need to put down the alcohol, quit pornography, end the affair, turn ourselves into a rehab center, go see a counselor, find community, seek forgiveness, and let ourselves be drawn close to the beating heart of God. 

Once we realize that pain can override our faith, we can stop beating ourselves up for feelings and emotions and behaviors that are simply trying to tell us we aren't getting what we need... and perhaps we never did. But it's not too late to have the story re-written. Over-ridden doesn't mean forever helpless and hopeless. God is in the business of restoration and those who truly want the best for you are too. This doesn't have to be the end. I hope you believe that for yourself and those you love.