Is your life built on lies?

One of my favorite movie moments is when Buddy the Elf (who grew up in Santa's workshop at the North Pole) confronts a department-store Santa for being an impersonator. "You sit on a throne of lies," hisses Buddy, moments before ripping off "Santa's" beard in front of a crowd of kiddies.



Yesterday I was forced to confront some lies that have wormed their way into my own life. I didn't exactly build a throne on them, I guess, but I was doing something worse: building my marriage on them.

See to it that no one takes you captive by philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the world, and not according to Christ.--Colossians 2:8

When I read that verse, I started thinking. Paul presented a contrast: "The world according to human tradition/philosophy" vs "The world according to Christ." The world's philosophy and tradition are nothing but "empty deceit." That's pretty clear.

What hurts is when you start thinking about the things in your life that are not based directly on Scriptural principles. According to what we read above, if it's not based on Scriptural principles, it's empty deceit. Lies.

What started to hit home was that some of my expectations of my husband have absolutely no basis in Scripture but only in human tradition, and that my expectations of myself and my role in marriage were lies as well. I was comparing myself to the world's idea of a wife's role, adding a few "Christianized" requirements, and saying to myself that I was doing pretty well as a wife. At the same time I was basing my expectations of my husband (how embarrassing to have to admit it!) on what I had seen on TV, read in books, or observed in other couples.

Sometimes it was as innocuous as who takes out the garbage. In my experience, and, I admit, on TV, usually the guy takes out the trash for garbage day. And even though it's not really a big deal for me to take out the trash, I was irritated at Scott for not doing it because "he's supposed to." Where is that in Scripture? Nowhere. It was a lie that the Enemy wanted me to believe so that I would be frustrated with my husband.

Lots of similar things were bugging me. But when I started meditating on Col. 2:8 I started realizing how they were all lies, empty deceit. And when I started thinking about Scriptural principles, I saw how far my heart was from where God would have it.

...whoever would be great among you must be your servant,and whoever would be first among you must be your slave, even as the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.-- Matthew 20:26-28

Wow. Ouch. Convicting! And that's not even mentioning Proverbs 31. So instead of thinking about ways I wish Scott would serve me (and in the process not appreciating what he does already) I should be looking for ways to serve him, above and beyond what Scripture lays out as a wife's role.

But I don't think that this lesson is limited to marriage, or even to relationships.

We all have certain expectations and goals in life that direct our daily decisions. But what if those expectations are not based on Scriptural principles? For example, "The American Dream:" doing well in business, owning a nice home, raising your family and being able to buy plenty of "stuff," whatever your preferred brand of "stuff" may be. Is that based on Scripture? Is it based on anything but selfishness? It's a lie! And when times get tough and the dream crumbles: the house gets foreclosed, your business folds, and you can't buy your stuff anymore, there is nothing left but the lie, the emptiness that mocks you for building on such a foundation.

But if your goal is to glorify God and pursue Him, whatever your circumstances, it changes the meaning of everything. Sometimes you can still have the nice house, good business, etc, because God wants you to have those resources to serve Him. But because the goal is to serve God and others, if you lose everything material you have not lost your purpose. Even if you never regain your possessions, you can still glorify God and serve others. Not that it would be easy, but at least it wouldn't be empty.

--------
Lord, what are the areas I need to tear down and rebuild on the true foundation? Show me. Show me the truths in Scripture that are strong enough to hold up my life. Help me fix my eyes on you, and build my life on the Rock.

Where do you live?

Dreams can be funny things. I mean while-you-sleep dreams, not the goals/wishes/aspirations kind of dreams. Once I had a dream where part of it came true. Twice I've had dreams where I was singing and I remembered part of the song when I woke up (and each time ended up writing the rest of the song to go with it). Last night I had some strange dreams, but when I woke up this morning I was only thinking about one of them.

It was about a prison camp. For some reason they had statues and beautiful works of art there, things that people would pay a lot of money to own or even to view in a museum. But the thought that I woke with was this: the people there were still in a prison camp.

In that twilight of thought where I wasn't quite asleep and I wasn't fully awake, I started to explore that idea.

What I felt instinctively was that, like our world, the prison camp had some really neat and interesting stuff in it. But there was so much more outside the fences of the camp: a bigger world, a freer world, a more beautiful world.

I imagined people picking up rocks from the gravel pathways, collecting them, becoming absorbed in them and not noticing when the liberators tore down the walls to free the prisoners. So many people, even Christians, are completely wrapped up in the making of money and acquisition of STUFF, as worthless in God's eyes as gravel. They have great collections, but they're still living in the prison camp of this world, abiding by its rules, slave to its whims.

That's as far as I got before the alarm disturbed my thoughts and jerked me all the way into reality as I whacked the clock, vainly trying to find the snooze button.

Now, obviously, I don't think making money is bad. I don't think having stuff is bad. But when lifestyle choices mean we have to work extra hours to pay for things we don't really need, we are moving our priorities away from Biblical priorities, choosing to follow the world's prison rules instead of God's. God puts a huge priority on people. Not stuff.

It's not just people with lots of money that can stay trapped in the prison camp collecting gravel instead of enjoying the beauty and freedom outside. Folks without much money (even Christians!) tend to think that having more money and more stuff would make life easier, and therefore, better. Maybe that's partially true. But this group can start coveting the gravel that others are piling up for themselves, and feel deprived and discontent because they can't have as much gravel as someone else. Or, which is just as bad, start to say, "Ok, God, look at how wonderful I am for trying to be content with what I have! I'd better be racking up the brownie points!" They, too, are living by the prison camp rules instead of God's.

Here in the States we have so much. We who are students or struggling because of other reasons may think we're poor, but we have more gravel than most of the world can afford. But maybe that's a good way of thinking of it: gravel.

Uh-oh, now I have an idea. And I'm going to try it. When I see some stuff I want, I will try to go one step farther than "can I afford it?" to "is this something I need or is this gravel? Do I want it because the prison guard (aka Everyone Else) says so?"

Jesus purchased our freedom, tore down the walls of the prison camp, and showed us the way out, but we still choose whether or not to live inside or outside.

Where will you live?