Exchanging the truth for a lie....

25 because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen. -Romans 1:25

I've just returned from the Mars Hill Women's Training Day held at the Bellevue campus. Similar to the training day that I attended two years ago, I have a lot to process and chip away at. 
Both training day experiences have left me with the exact same question: do I want to be known? 

Do I want to attempt to allow other women to speak into my life, witness my ugly moments, walk with me through the muddy waters of living this side of Heaven? Because, honestly, Americans all seem a bit phony. The facade of the Pinterest Mom and her household, the Sunday Christians (more of us than we want to admit), the humble brags on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, all make me cringe a little bit inside, or roll my eyes, or worse, inspire comparison then competition. 

We have exchanged the truth for a lie. We have believed things that are purely from Satan, or if we can be really honest, from our own wicked and deceitful heart. When the Bible talks about how rotten our hearts are, it isn't describing just those unsaved. The seasoned Christian isn't exempt here. Our hearts are sinful, completely filled with unrighteousness and manipulative motivation. An easy example that I can think of is when I have casually posted a "Takethemameal" photo and hashtag on Instagram to show the beautiful spread that I created to "serve" others. But, who gets the proverbial pat on the back with 15 'likes'? Who gets the glory via kind comments? Me. I do. I get the glory and rob Jesus of the credit he so rightly deserves. I have done this. It was coy. It wasn't showy. That's an example of how manipulative and wicked the heart can be. 

At the Training Day we talked about beauty. That was the only topic  dissected and disassembled into many different takeaways. At the very end of the 9am-4pm day we wrote down some lies on a piece of paper; probably like 500 of us, and dropped them into a basket at the foot of the cross, then we walked past another basket full of pieces of paper with scripture on it. A truth. We gave up some of our lies and took up God's word. Here is what my piece of paper read: 
  
John 1:12-13 But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.

If I chose to believe that I have become a child of God, I would submit to you that accepting truth over lies is going to heavily rely on grace and the conviction of the Holy Spirit daily. Hourly. Because, the lies pop up, the judgment pops up, the cutting down and tearing apart of my fellow sisters pops up, and it's ugly. And, I want to apologize. Apologize to all of my sisters whom I have offered a false encouragement to regarding their selfies, and kid brags, and every other way that we sin online specifically. I have done a disservice by perpetuating what has just become the norm for society.

I have done a disservice by saying things like this: 
"She lost the baby weight so fast, and only eats organic, and her kids love kale. She is so exceptional. Ugh, I have a lot to fix. Man, tomorrow I am going to start doing..."

"She knows SO much of the Bible. I bet her kids are better theologians than I will ever be. I wish I could know God like that." 

Or, conversely, I have BEEN that wife who posts how my husband just deep cleaned the whole house with a tooth brush. Who knows how many of my peers I made jealous...covetous, irritated with me or their spouse? Even more absurd is that Caleb doesn't even want public praise on Facebook. He would rather me go straight to his face and tell him. How often do we do this with God? 

Recently, I kicked Instagram off of my iPhone. It was not edifying. However, the other day I felt the urge to take a picture of Clara's #ootd (outfit of the day), and share it with my IG followers because she just looked SO cute. And, the Holy Spirit stopped me in my iPhone clenching tracks and whispered to me to just thank Jesus for my little girl. For this little doll of a person that I never expected to love and cherish as much as I do. I didn't NEED to post her looking "adorbs" because she is more than that. She is made in His image and likeness, and by His grace she will know Him, and love Him, and walk with Him. Her beauty will derive from him. In that impulse of wanting to 'share' I was actually wanting the positive attention that comes from cute kid pics. I was wanting props for how cute I dress my daughter. I wanted the glory. It wasn't something I even gave much thought to, it was the instantaneous desire of my heart that sin nature creates and then manifests in different ways. For the modern mom, those ways come out through Instagram, Facebook, and the like. Don't get me wrong, gossip and playdate infractions still exist as a normal way to devour our sisters. However, online sharing seems to be taking over. And, whether gossip doesn't ensue (husbands included), we ought to examine whether we are sinning against one another in our hearts.

I want to chose to really buy into my adoption as "sons and daughters" by not contributing to the vanities and lip service seen online. Encouragement has it's time and place, but unless it points us to Jesus and His outstanding love and grace, it is really only hinders maturation. I want to chose to believe that I am His, by not being silly and insecure when someone pays me a compliment about an outfit, or my hair. We can still receive praise but leave it at that and not elaborate or apologize for, or fuss over ourselves so much. The more we fuss over ourselves, the more we are saying that God made a mistake. He doesn't know what we need. He is withholding from us. He can't relate. We are believing lies, and cultivating other people's internal lies by allowing the image and projection of our lives to take first place. 

We should image Jesus. We should direct all things, and I mean everything to and about, and from Jesus. He is the good news. He is our beautiful savior. We will never get enough 'likes', or have our spouses dote on us enough, or be the same body shape post babies. We just won't be satisfied apart from Him. Once we learn and accept [daily] that this story; our existence, is meant to bring glory for his name's sake, then we can know true beauty.