Is it true or is it not true?

·      * Excerpt from “Circle Talk: Control the Controllable and Release the Rest”

It’s true, satan would love nothing better than to devour any fruit of the Spirit the believer might possess. I pray my story will help the reader understand how The Circle can help release sorrow for joy, chaos for self-control, animosity for love, frustration for patience, meanness for kindness, evil for goodness, disloyalty for faithfulness, hardness for gentleness, and for me, discord for peace.

 As I said earlier, I don’t have to reach far into my thick file entitled “Lessons Jesus Has Taught Susan” to find a personal example of just about any life lesson. Guarding my heart is no exception. God revealed very specifically the value of guarding my heart against the thief of peace, leaving my heart in discord. And for me, discord meant anxiety. My story is proof of the power of God’s work in my life as I cried out to Him with a pure and sincere heart at avery early age. Proverbs 4:23 has become a life verse for me.

 When asked about what triggers anxiety for me, I would need to go back to my childhood. God revealed to me that I have a devalue button and when it’s pushed my anxiety is felt throughout my body.

Many years ago, someone said something to me that satan has used in my life, even to this day, that sends the message: “You’re not good enough.” “You are not valuable.” I’ve asked God to take me back to that first lie so that I can rebuke it, and praise God He did just that.

 It started in elementary school. I was a chubby, 8 year old little girl in the 3rd grade that was frequently called names. The name some of the students called me was “fatso.” Kids can be very cruel, and one day I was sitting at my desk and dropped my pencil on the floor.

When I bent over to pick it up (back then the desktop and chair were connected), the desk fell over with me in it on the floor. The teacher asked a really cute boy in the class to help me, and when he grabbed my hand, the desk came up with me. Many in the class started laughing. The story in my head that day was, “I’m not good enough”, “I’m less than.” The lies began forming immediately.

Then, in the 4th grade, the teacher made everyone “chart” their height and weight and put it on the wall in the classroom so everyone could see. The chart showed I was the heaviest girl in my 4th grade classroom. It was so humiliating. The kids were smarter this time in their ridicule of me. They were not as overt. They used inferred messages instead---talking behind my back, whispering to each other as I walked by, and pointing to the chart, which was so much worse. It caused me to start making things up in my mind about what they were saying. In other words, I was finishing the story in my head whether I knew it was true or not.

That was nothing but the work of satan himself, hand-feeding me lies, and I started believing them. If someone said or did something that I interpreted as demeaning to me in any way, I started reading between the lines, and my mind would take me places it did not need to go; hence my “devalue button” that satan loves to push, even to this day.

But now, after much time spent with the Lord and learning who I really am in Him, I stop and say, “Wait God, is that true or not true?” I then release over to God what is not mine to own or what is not true…it’s not in my circle! I receive only truth. John 8:32 (NIV) says, “Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free” and then, by God’s grace, I act on truth.

If I feel like my “devalue button” has been pushed, I:

STOP: Stop means STOP! Slow down, take a breath, and stop to think about what was said or what you heard.

(The Hebrew word for stop means to shut up – to stop the mouth, to reduce to silence.)

DROP: Drop to your knees and pray! Ask God, “is it true or is it not true?”

(The Hebrew word for drop means to release, or to drop or to leak as in tears.)

ROLL: Roll over or release and commit to God what you cannot control, own, handle, or a lie you have believed.

(Hebrew word for roll is to commit, to roll off or roll away.)

He can handle it all! Lord…keep in my circle only what you have told me is in my circle. Help me guard my heart. If I don’t “own” it, help me “roll” it over to you, Lord.

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