From time to time, I receive a potted flower as a gift....and I love it. I think those are some of my favorite gifts, to be honest, because it's so rewarding to successfully care for that little plant and watch it grow. Although cut flowers are much more extravagant with all the greenery and arrangement and the vase, I know the day I set them on the table that they are already dead. It's much more wonderful to get a modest little late-bloomer that I know will one day blossom into something beautiful -- hopefully over and over again.He feeds on ashes, a deluded heart misleads him;
he cannot save himself, or say,
"Is not this thing in my right hand a lie?"
Isaiah 44:20
One thing about potted plants though: they usually outgrow their pot. The healthier they get, the longer their roots will stretch, seeking more nutrients and deeper territory. The confines of the pot begin to stunt the plant as it seeks to become fuller and stronger. Eventually I will have to place that plant into the ground outside where it can get fresh air and sunshine and grow larger in a broader space. Otherwise, it will probably die. There's no going back to the small plant I received that first day, happy with the pot it is planted in.
In experiencing this life, I have come to believe that many of us are planted in a pot of lies. How this happens, I don't really understand. I guess it's just the fallenness of the world that has corrupted the soil our souls are steeped in from birth. Although some of us are blessed enough to have some sheltered years of honesty and wholesomeness, many others never experience the security of those bonds of trust. And still others make their way out into a world that fills our ears with lies and our eyes with a skewed view of reality. But our Father in heaven is faithful, isn't He? I imagine Him lifting us out of that pot of deceit when we reach out to Him. I imagine Him carrying us to a new plot of soil, filled with His refreshment, His love, His truth.
And yet the moment we are planted there is painful, isn't it? We must confront what we have come from. We are faced with making a decision: to reject what we have always known, what has, indeed, nourished our own roots with deception, and to embrace this newness, this strange awareness He presents us with. It's intimidating to begin to understand the wrong of what has become second nature to us. We have always believed and lived in accordance with what we know now are lies. But those ways are so much easier to just return to. They are, in many ways, native to our hearts. And like a stranger in a foreign land, we may feel out of place, insecure, and a poor match for this much healthier environment.
Which is exactly how the enemy of our souls, of our growth, our freedom, and our life in Christ, would have us to feel.
He is the father of lies, friends. That is what he draws strength from. That is what he uses to work havoc in the heart of a believer. Sure, we are a new creation in the saving Grace of Jesus, but some of that old potting soil still clings to our root system. Our enemy would have us to hold onto it, and there are so many ways he convinces us to do that. Old habits. Old insecurities. Old identities. Old relationships. Old patterns of thought. Old prejudices. Old guilts. As our loving Father gently taps each one, pain shoots into our flesh, those nerve endings so sensitive to His holy touch. "Leave that alone!" the old nature cries out. "That's part of me! That's where I came from! I need that! That can't be changed; it's just who I am." We don't even realize the death grip those lies have on our lives. We don't even understand that until we let them go, our growth will be stunted and we will never absorb all that the Father has graciously placed around us for our good.
Let's let go of that old soil, dear one. If you've hung on through this post this long, I think you and I have something in common. There are so many different deceits we can be bogged down with, so many different angles the enemy uses to shoot his flaming arrows. But if you and I are bought by Christ, if we truly belong to Him, there is no place for lies in our lives. We can believe Him and take Him at His word: "The truth will set you free." Let's be free. Let's look at the lies we are holding onto. And let's let go.
