In Thailand, my team and I prayed over a family and their home, and I so clearly remember the Hindu shrine they had set up in their living room. I remember the huge Buddha statue in the juvenile detention center where we shared the gospel and handed out cookies. I remember the Cambodian temples and Buddhist monks that we would watch walk down the streets early in the mornings. I remember the Hindu paintings, the statues, and the trinkets they sold at the markets we visited in Asia. I remember the idol worship, and the ways it broke my heart.
And then I was at Project Searchlight and realized that I am an idol worshiper.
Relationships have always been important to me. I’m sure you either know that or have learned that about me through reading my writing this year. I love people, I love friendships and relationships, I love connection, and I love community. I love the beautiful people that are in my life, and I thank God for putting them in my story. I spent years as a little girl praying that God would give me a best friend, someone whose side I would never leave and who would never leave mine and who I could eat lunch with every day and whose house I could go to for weekly sleepovers. That never came in the way that I had hoped or expected, and for a while, I believed that this was punishment. I believed that I would get too close to people, and that they would replace God in my heart, and that He would then take them out of my life as a way to snap me back to the reality that He wants to be my one and only. I don’t believe that anymore; mostly because the God I believed was doing that was manipulative and narcissistic. That God was like a bride who makes her bridesmaids wear dresses that don’t look good simply so “all the focus can be on her.”
This isn’t the God we serve (and thank God, literally). Ever since that longing as a little person to have that one singularly satisfying person, I’ve had an unhealthy relationship with, well… relationships. I’ve been fueled by that desire to be known, seen, acknowledged, sought after, and loved (side note, if you’re at all seeing bits of my story mixed into yours, let me just say right now that, well… yeah! This is how our hearts are made! There’s no condemnation in that desire. That’s literally the way that God crafted our hearts. Read on -) Combine those deep desires to be known, seen, etc. with deep fears of being abandoned, forgotten, rejected, and never being chosen (which is such a classic but catastrophic fear tactic of the enemy), and you find me (and so many of us, am I right?) at the crossroads of death-gripping any friendship I can get my hands on out of fear that people will leave.
Guys, I just have to say… what a miserable place to be. I was confiding in some sweet friends (who I know are going to be in my life for a long time, and even while I was speaking to their faces satan was telling me that they were going to leave PSL and never pursue a friendship with me) that it makes me cringe when I look at myself because I feel needy and childish and completely dominated by fear and not living the abundant life I know is accessible to me and just all-around frustrated with myself. It’s also a miserable place to be because I find myself making decisions from a completely different mindset; it’s like FOMO on steroids. It blows my expectations of other people way out of proportion. It is so completely selfish; I don’t give someone a gift because I love them – I give them a gift because I want them to love me. I don’t call them to say he because I want to talk to them – I call them to remind them how sweet and nice I am so that they’ll like me and want to be my friend. Yuck!
And I was explaining all this to my friends and the Holy Spirit spoke through one of them and clearly said to me “Joanna, you worship relationships.” Now, I know that the word worship in relation to anything other that the Lord is therefore idolatry. And that realization hit me like a train. For years I have relied on relationships to fully sustain me. I have put relationships on the highest pedestal in my life, and have been crushed time and time again when a person or group of people fail to supply me with all I need for life abundant (I mean… yeah. Duh. Because that’s not. their. job.). Another quick side note: This is not the first time the Lord has shown me this about myself. So if you’re in the same boat, or a boat that looks like mine even a little bit, please know that there is no condemnation to any of this. The Lord is gracious and kind and I am positive this will not be the last time He shows me this about myself and calls me to something better.
But the thing that has been different about the Lord showing me this stuff about myself this time around is that now, I understand freedom. And freedom is the aspect that’s missing from straight self-awareness; freedom is having an understanding I didn’t have before that Jesus Christ didn’t die for me to try to subsist (not even exist… SUBsist) on the relational alms of others, and He also didn’t die for me to live in fear of abandonment and rejection (which are lies… Jesus Christ didn’t die for me to live in fear of a lie, my friends!). I can choose whether or not to go and pick up those shackles I’m freed from and re-chain myself. Spoiler alert: I will go back and pick those up. Because I’m human and sinful and fallen. But grace is an incredible gift. And I have a choice in this whole thing, no matter how deep-seeded the fears or how intense the identity crisis. I have the choice to continue to learn about myself and let it stop at that or to take an active stand against the idolatry I know is so easy for me to go to. I have a choice to pray against the warfare and to ask other people to pray against the warfare or just sit there and take it. And I don’t want to take it anymore. I’ve learned a lot in the process, but it’s exhausting.
I share this with you not because I’m a finished work. Clearly, I’m at the beginning stages of this battle. But I know that this isn’t just one of those weird Joanna quirks. I know it’s a lot of us. I know that because satan is sneaky and because he knows that our hearts are meant to be known, seen, acknowledged, sought after, and loved, and he’s willing to feed us any fake substitute he can (which also looks like money, alcohol, sex, etc… and trust me, I’ve been there, too). Did you catch that? Those desires that I have that I want to fulfill with silly, sinning humans? I’m made for those things! Guys, this is what our hearts are made for. I’m not some twisted, messed up person with these insane desires. I’m desirous of exactly what I’m made to be desirous of! But NO ONE can know me well enough or seek me out well enough or pursue me well enough or love me well enough for me to ever be satisfied. No idol will ever do what I want it to do. But my sweet, sweet friends, the real thing is so much better than idol worship. I can’t promise you a lot of things, but I can absolutely (as Hillary would say, one hundo percent) promise you that.
