How to Get to the Bottom of Lies You’ve Internalized

Ever feel like you’re on the operating table? Like all your wound-tight knots and woundedness are under scrutiny?

That’s where I was just the other day—asking a brave question in my journal then heading outside to work through it with God while I walked.

When you find yourself turning well wishes for the weekend into “leave me alone,” assuming genuine questions indicate annoyance and obligation, and taking gentle correction as confirmation you can’t do anything right, you’ve got to get to the bottom of it.

Out here you feel small, not because your inner critic is loud, but because God’s glory is expansive.

Thankful for unusually cool air, you jog first to warm up. There’s no distraction to hide behind as you ponder your question. Where did it begin—this destructive spiral of self-sabotage and rapid re-wording?

Get to the Bottom of the Lie

Alli Worthington’s voice is in your head because you just finished her book, Breaking Busy. “Whenever I feel a certain way about myself (afraid, unworthy, dumb, incapable), I ask God, in prayer, to help me remember the first time I felt that way,” she wrote. “Pinpointing the exact first time I remember feeling that way–discovering its source–helps me to reject the lie and pull it out at its root.”

That’s why you’re pressing on this spot that hurts; you’ve ignored it for too long.

You recall a moment when you first started believing that what matters to you didn’t matter to anyone else—and therefore you didn’t matter. Even at the time you knew it was inaccurate, yet you still internalized the message.

As you grew older, you tried to make up for the ways you felt invisible by perfecting everything you touched. Meals. Desserts. Papers. Art. Grades. But when you think achieving perfection equates to feeling seen, you fall into a cycle of always trying to top your last performance.

You can nail the perfect GPA, volunteer for everything, turn your playroom into a Montessori classroom, and earn your keep in the kitchen, but if you don’t unroot the lies beneath your self-critical striving, you find them popping up years later.

God Sees It All

We can’t outrun, outwork, or forever stuff the mistruths that make us feel unworthy. They’ll emerge in unexpected moments, warp what we see in the mirror, override what God says about us.

We can’t outrun, outwork, or forever stuff the mistruths that make us feel unworthy (Twyla Franz quote).

Aren’t you grateful God’s persistent? He adores us far too much to not encourage us to heal. But He’s also patient. Though it pains Him when we resist, He stays right next to us even when we’re not ready yet. And He sticks with us when we hesitantly invite Him to see all of it–the present, the past, and how it’s connected.

Sometimes I forget He’s well aware already. Hebrews 4:13 reminds us,

There is not one person who can hide their thoughts from God, for nothing that we do remains a secret, and nothing created is concealed, but everything is exposed and defenseless before his eyes, to whom we must render an account.
TPT

It’s equally terrifying and comforting. Terrifying because He knows every fleeting, unrighteous thought, every lie I’ve told and the ones I’ve believed, every fear that’s directed me away from His best. Comforting because none of it changes how He sees me.

I’m the “apple of His eye” (Zech. 2:8).

I’m cherished and chosen, child and heir.

I am beloved.

And you are too.

Unrooting Lies for Someone Else

Retracing your steps to the moment a lie about who you are first lodged in your heart is not a task God observes with folded arms or a stern look on His face. It’s a time when His relational heart aches with desire to see you overcome–and also grow closer to Him. He’s for you, in a fuller way than any human could ever be.

Know that when you too find yourself on the operating table, sifting through memories, naming what’s broken. Those jagged places that tug and tear are safe in His hands. He’s kind and wise and incredibly skilled. He repairs and redeems as only a Master Surgeon can do.

And here’s what makes it even more beautiful. That work He’s doing in you is also a gift to others. It’s a slice of a story in a much larger arc, and that sliver may be exactly what someone next to you needs.

God’s love stretches scarlet red through history, offering hope and healing. But we tend to see only where we stand and miss the bigger picture.

We see the lack and loss and lament of an unfinished story and blame the Storyteller. We distrust His intentions towards us and His ability to turn the plot around.

We see the lack and loss and lament of an unfinished story and blame the Storyteller (Twyla Franz quote).

That’s where each other’s stories come in. They lend perspective. Another lens. Hope that God’s up to something good in the middle of what feels disruptive or irredeemable.

What if your unfolding story can unroot lies for someone else?

What if your courage to walk honest and surrendered into the operating room can encourage her to step inside too?

What if your story helps her get free?

May I pray for you?

Jesus, I pray for the one believing she’s invisible. Unworthy. Too much or not enough. Take her by the hand and lead her through the chapters of her story until she finds the point she first felt like this. Place Your hand over hers as she yanks out the lie by its root.

You’re there, ready to take the shame and unworth and give her a story of rescue and redemption to share instead. May courage beget courage and hope multiply hope.

Just a friend over here in your corner,