I struggle with trusting my perception for a variety of reasons. One being I was raised in a culture where I was taught and struggled to believe God just didn’t mean certain verses in the Bible. It said that, but it didn’t actually mean that. God didn’t actually mean John 3:16 the way it sounds. What He really meant to say was “dah…dah…dah”
At some point in my life I suppose I must have believed this. I was one of the strictest in that culture before leaving and putting my faith in Christ. Because I was raised with so many contradictions, I learned on a very deep level that everything I perceived and could logically conclude was wrong. This began in my understanding of the Bible and God, but bled into everything.
I am also a victim of sexual abuse. This has distorted my view of reality for years. For years I valiantly made excuses for my abusers and took the blame. It is unfathomable to me why it is so much easier to believe I am inherently wrong, defective and undesirable than to believe that someone who was supposed to love me didn’t. But that is a brief rabbit trail.
This morning I began a conversation with God about something in my life that really had me upset. As I had this conversation with Him on my way to church, I realized all the anger I was experiencing was not against anyone except myself. I was angry at myself for once again not trusting my own perception. This time the consequences were that I had quit fighting for people.
As I walked home tonight and my conversation continued with God about my anger, my contempt, my bitterness, my perception and my quitting, I came to the realization that a lot of my conversations with God come full circle to a conversation with Him about me not fighting for people.
The last time I took my inventory, about half the list of people I had harmed were harmed by me not fighting for them. My second greatest sin must be not loving my neighbor as myself. I spend an incredible amount of time saving emotional energy and not fighting for people.
Someday I want to quit checking out. Someday I want to stay and fight. Actually I want to do that today.
Learn to do right; seek justice. Defend the oppressed. Take up the cause of the fatherless; plead the case of the widow. – Isaiah 1:17
Speak up and judge fairly; defend the rights of the poor and needy. – Proverbs 31:9
Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen: to loose the chains of injustice and untie the cords of the yoke, to set the oppressed free and break every yoke? – Isaiah 58:6
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