Music from Ruston Kelly to enjoy as you read the following:
Captain’s Log, stardate: 12022024
Last night in my dream he showed me how we tie each other up in knots in our attempts to get what we want without actually having to grow. We are unwilling to engage with the sacrificial demands of love and do everything to avoid the truth and exposure and enlist others in the same game of this web of lies and so we create a culture dominated by lies.
He showed me that this is sorcery in much the same as Rumpelstiltskin and his “favors” as fleshed out in the show Once Upon a Time, in Storybrook. We make deals with people who also want to get a leg up in life and not have to die to themselves and grow and love and it turns into a spiritual pyramid scheme of control and domination of lies.
God showed me this evil house of cards falling. How was this accomplished?
Through telling the truth! (Which can be interpreted as “confession of sin”)
Exposure.
Exposure made all the witches dreams go “poof” in a cloud of smoke that dissipated in a matter of moments.
I wish I could say this more eloquently than it appears in writing here. I’m not sure how much better I could do to convey this very interesting lesson.
The metaphor I was given was of a bakery. This woman had a shop and compelled people to come in and the place smelled wonderful. But then the woman came out and said, “There is no one working back in the kitchen. There are no baked goods. I have fabricated this aroma to deceive you.”
And “poof” these webs of lies and control of the enemy was broken off of her life and her telling the truth spread like wildfire setting the whole community free until it travelled all the way back to the sorcerer himself (the “Rumple-dumple-stilt-skin” in this scenario). They were all left with the same problems they had started with but now they were prepared to face them because they had hope. The truth had set them free. AND, we all realized we were all in this together and so we had compassion on one another. Compassion formed the basis from which we could build a real community.
One of the greatest metaphors for the point I am trying to convey is through this amazing musical movie called “Dear Evan Hansen” about Evan, a young man on antidepressants who writes himself an encouraging letter to make it through the day. He “fell” out of a tree and broke his arm and was presumed to be good friends with another troubled boy who had committed suicide. It was quite an experience to watch this musical. As I watched the final scenes and pondered on the lessons learned through this character, however painful those lessons were, I saw that the experience had instilled within Evan a hope and a fight for the future that he had been given a brief look into. During his time spent with his “white lie that snowballed into a mammoth avalanche of pain” he was shown a life filled with connection and purpose and community. All of this evaporated when he told the truth. He lost it all. The community. The respect. The love of his life. All gone. But one thing remained. The hope that life could be great again… someday… just not now. That is how the movie ends.
The sense of living in the peace of that hope was enough. He would face whatever came because he knew he was living for a someday that he could nurture and grow like a garden into a fulfilled life.
I can relate to this story on a profound level. God is rebuilding my reputation that I had torpedoed and sabotaged because I didn’t trust me. But that all changes when Jesus puts His trust “in you”.
I had this moment recently that confronted me with the following reality:
“This is as good as it will ever get. You are living your best life NOW!”
I am living “heaven on earth” NOW! Right NOW is where your wholeness and fullness of joy lives. Return to it through confession. Speak the truth. Speak the truth that Jesus is speaking over you and your life. This is what confession is truly all about. Confessing the good stuff he has established in the New Covenant Reality that you are in. Let me repeat that last phrase, for we all need to hear this:
You are “in”.
“I hope I get to see my garden grow, tall and purposed…” 🎶 — lyrics in the Ruston Kelly song, Brave.
Daniel Lovett 