Stranger than Fiction

First Person Lies

I recently read JoLyn Brown’s inspiring post about people writing uplifting messages upon our walls. I want to address the antithesis of her idea, the cruel and pernicious graffiti that sprawls across the consciousness of our minds. We generally refer to it as, ‘negative self-talk.’ But is it always the self that’s talking? Uncovering the genesis of these thoughts can be empowering and life changing.

The Lies and the Damage they Cause

We’re all afflicted with thoughts that depress, discourage, and demean us. Do any of these sound familiar?

I can’t do that

I’m not good enough

I’m not as talented as they are

I’ll never be good at this

I’m just so weak

I’ll never overcome this

Blah, blah, blah.

You could fill 10 additional pages of examples, couldn’t you? Consider how these statements affect us. They stop our forward motion and cause us to doubt ourselves, our abilities, and our ambitions. They attack our very identity and worth. If we believe them, they negatively affect our choices and behavior. If we wallow in them and allow them to marinate in our minds we’re soon reduced to powerless victimhood rather than remaining proactive agents.

The Origin

Where do these destructive thoughts originate? Are they our own thoughts or is someone placing them in our minds? Maybe a bit of both. The answer to this most critical question is weighted with significance. Depending on their source, they are either lies we can have power over, or truth that can help us. The test of authorship can determine validity. Let’s consider three possible sources:

God

He is the easiest being to discount. In the scriptures, has the Lord ever said to someone, “You are such a loser. You can’t do anything right. Give up. You’ll never make it.” Pretty absurd, right? All I read in the scriptures is, ‘Look to God and live, Be of good cheer, I am with you always, Fear not, Let your hearts be comforted, Peace be unto thy soul, Be not troubled.’

Put it to the test. Think of one of those harsh mental declarations and try to reconcile it with God’s character and compassion. Reflect upon your experience with the workings of the Spirit. Ask yourself, “Would the Holy Spirit say this to me?” You can probably feel quite certain that God would not speak such discouraging messages to His beloved child. He’s our greatest cheerleader, not our chief discourager.

Self

The primary reason we may be quick to take ownership of those dark ideas that come into our brain is because they present themselves in the first person form. We are familiar with this pattern of internal dialogue. Everything we say about ourselves in our minds is in the first person. ‘I am hungry. I want to go there. I feel so happy about that.’ We wouldn’t knowingly lie to ourselves. We speak the truth and naturally give great credibility to our perceptions and thoughts. And we know ourselves so well. We feel justified in berating and condemning ourselves. But are our judgements consistent with our true identities?

The Enemy

We all know Satan is our great enemy. He is jealous of us and bent on our destruction. But have you considered exactly how he possesses us, tries us, and torments us? He cannot have power to read our minds but he has been given the ability to place temptations there. He’s certainly smart enough to figure out that if those thoughts entered our head in third person we would detect him immediately as the evil invader he is. So he couches his maleficence in first person to avoid detection and give credibility to the libelous statements. Herein lies the great deception.

Our Power

By recognizing his clever tactics of first person belittling, we can cauterize his power over us. After identifying the lies, I find it most helpful to invite the gentle encouragement of the Holy Spirit to speak truth to my mind. His impressions and communications are always so kind and encouraging. Sometimes it’s a struggle to want to choose the positive. But just learning this one strategy of the enemy has helped me be more aware and be able to make the deliberate choice to shut out the lies.