Sometimes I don’t even realize I’m walking away from something good, from something I want. It just happens. A thought triggers an action and all the sudden I wonder where I’ve gone. Where is the love that holds my fragile pieces together? Why don’t I feel that presence I used to? Why am I not hearing God’s voice?

We think we have to be strong to defy the voices that lie to us, but the reality is that we feel weak. Life has broken us down, sometimes trampled us into the dirt, and any strength we muster truly takes everything we’ve got. It’s easier to accept the lies that infiltrate our thoughts than to fight them, right? Yes; well, maybe. But then again, there is something so magical about truth that often when spoken, or even thought, it can instantly become the power we need.

I look at it a bit like teleportation. Humor me. Picture yourself and God standing side by side. Then imagine a negative thought enters your head, and you lack the strength to fight it. So instead, you take one step away from God, though he stays in place. You may be doing this subconsciously, but it’s a reaction to the accepted and believed thought. Now, this happens over and over again until you’ve take so many steps away over the course of a day or a week or much, much longer, that God is now too far to get to. In your mind, you wonder what happened. Where did he go? Has he taken his love or his presence from you? But when you see this image, you realize you were the one who stepped away. No one told you to. You didn’t have to. But you did, because you believed thoughts that did not come from him. Now, I have often experienced moments, usually triggered by something like a song, a movie, a line from a book, where everything just fades away and I become aware of God’s love again. I realize he hasn’t left me and he’s calling me to come back into his embrace. It doesn’t matter how many steps away I’ve taken, or how many lies I believed between my last encounter and now. The moment I accept the truth of his love and how he sees me, I am instantly at his side again. I don’t have to run miles and miles. I’m just…well, teleported. 😉

Because that’s what truth does.

See, we think the lies are strong. We think our insecurity has power. But how much more power does truth have? I mean, it can’t even compare! If we could all just remember this every time we feel far from God or lack the power to fight, we will see that the strength we need has been ours all along, and that the battle favors our freedom.