“For Our Battle…”

The Lie

“I’ve Got This.”

It’s a simple statement that I know I’ve said many, many times. “I’ve got this. I can do this on my own. I don’t need help.”

It echoes with other statements… “I don’t have a problem. I can handle this. I can stop anytime. I can control this.”

I don’t control this life. I barely control my own existence. Thankfully I do know how to take a shower, how to brush my teeth and get presentable enough to walk out the door and do a job. But I didn’t. For a very long time. Oh I knew how to keep jobs, but I also knew that there was an end in sight. The longest job I ever had was eight years at a company with a manager that was very kind and very willing to let me do the good things I was capable of and try to help me walk through the harder ones that I couldn’t. Like staying out of trouble.

So the lie exists to kill us. Maybe not physically, but it does exist to bring us down to our knees, to our bellies, to put us in a place where we are so dependent upon a person, a substance, a bottle, a righteous or religious belief* that we can’t see the truth. Because you can get lost in a person, you can get lost in a bottle and you can get lost in your beliefs if they are misguiding, leading you to down a path of destruction.  

And I’m not talking about jumping off the cliff yet, that can come, but what it does do is lead you to being isolated, alone, angry, sad, depressed, anxious, all the fucking things! It’s an existence that doesn’t give any TRUE joy, and the little bit of happiness is fleeting and usually at the expense of others or ourselves. 

The lie presses us, it crushes us, and it brings us down, ultimately ending in sickness, exile, ridicule, shame. And honestly, I think living in shame, whether it’s veiled or out in the open is a whole lot harder than death. Because you’re not gonna care when you’re dead, but you know the shame. It wants to keep you just alive enough to torture and break us down from the inside out…

‘For our battle is not flesh and blood…’ I agree with this - soooo much!  It’s those things that eat at our spirit that are working against the light. We’re not fighting a person standing in front of us, again that would be easier than fighting the internal voices that come that are lying to us, fighting the truth. 

We can even find ourselves fighting those closest to us if they don’t understand or agree with us. Hell, sometimes it’s just fighting for fighting. Don’t you think that the dark forces, and I do believe there are dark forces out there, love the fact that we’re not at peace. Because if we’re not at peace, we start looking for answers, and instead of looking to the places full of hope and sustenance, we often look to sharing a bed, emptying a bottle, injecting something into our arms, all of the things.

It isn’t so much facing a lie as it is facing the truth. The truth will set you free… But it will also put you on your knees. And personally, being a man and being raised in a way where males are supposed to be tough, able to face things and not bow down and not be emotional, it’s a fucking lie to think that you can do this on your own. And I’m not just talking about your buddies you go drinking with. Yes you’ve got those, but I’m talking about being open and honest with one person, then maybe two, Then maybe you’ll have three or four.

There are currently four people in my life that I would trust with anything (there’s a fifth that’s starting to be trusted more and more that scares me a little bit, but not in a bad way. Just it’s so new and so beautifully vulnerable.) But it started with trusting one person who has been there since day one for me in terms of trying to face the truth. Then it became two. And when I start isolating, I still think at times that I shouldn’t share everything because ‘they don’t wanna hear it’, ‘I can handle this’. OR maybe I know they’re gonna tell me more truth that I don’t want to hear. But regardless, it took getting to a point to where everything was taken away before I realized that I needed others, including something spiritual to make it through the days.

The lie tells us that we can do this on our own. Can you? Honestly, can you do this on your own? I can’t. Ask my daughter. Ask her what it looked like to watch her father try to destroy himself from the inside out. Cause I wasn’t just fighting myself, I was also fighting those things that resonate within a very sick mind. And I was sick.

The lie will kill you.  Slowly, terribly, in the worst possible way.  Eventually separating you from those that love you, from help, separating you from a life that does include hardship, but also leads down a path to peace.

Does this sound familiar to you? Any of it? 

I know some answers that might help. I also know that it’s damn hard. But it’s worth it. 

I promise you it’s worth it. 

Face the truth. Dispel the lie.

One day at a time.

~ Peace

The Burtle

*faith and religion are not the same.  Anything that leads us away from a truth that resonates peace, love, something greater, can bring us into shame.

“But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, so that the surpassing greatness of the power will be of God and not from ourselves; we are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not despairing; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; Therefore we do not lose heart, but though our outer man is decaying, yet our inner man is being renewed day by day. For momentary, light affliction is producing for us an eternal weight of glory far beyond all comparison, while we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen; for the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal.”

2 Corinthians‬ ‭4‬:‭7‬-‭9‬, ‭16‬-‭18‬ ‭NASB1995‬‬

“For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the powers, against the world forces of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places.”

Ephesians‬ ‭6‬:‭12‬ ‭NASB1995‬‬