God's Message to the Overachieving, Perfectionist Christian

I'm no stranger to a prophetic word from others, but there would be one message in particular that people would tell me occasionally that would always confuse me. It would be some version of:

"The Lord is coming against a lie you're believing."

Naturally, I would wonder, "What lie? Lord, if that's true, what lie am I believing?" For years, if someone told me this, other than my initial "what is the lie?" thought, I wouldn't give it much thought after the fact. The thing about believing a lie is that you don't know when you're believing a lie, or else you wouldn't believe it. It's not until you're confronted with pure truth that the lie becomes terribly apparent.

A few weeks ago, after one of my notorious escapades of working myself into the ground, which I've done all throughout grade school, college, and now as an adult, the Lord finally revealed what that lie was, and it dramatically shifted my whole perspective, something I didn't realize how desperately I needed.

"GET A B!"

This is what my dad said to me one day in the 5th or 6th grade, coming home with my tear-stained report card. With how hard I cried coming home that day, he assumed someone had died. When I told him through gasps for breath that I was sure that I had gotten my first B, he let out a "WHAT??" pausing to ensure he heard me correctly. He continued, "Oh my gosh. GET A B! All that your mom and I care about is that you did your best. If that's a B, if that's a C... who cares?" Trying to collect myself a bit, I reluctantly opened my report card, and sure enough...I had gotten an A. All A's, as a matter of fact.

Fast forward almost 20 years later, wrestling with the words of my dad throughout those 20 years even to as recently as a few weeks ago as he reminds me of this story in analogous moments, even as an adult, you realize that some words, unfortunately, don't sink as deeply until you hear them from someone specific, and in my case, from God Himself.

A Vision at an Annual Vision Event

I attended what's called a "Vision Event" for Scarlet Hope, a non-profit that I volunteer with that seeks to bring the light of Jesus to women in the adult-entertainment industry, whether they solicit themselves online or in strip clubs. Such events are geared toward fellowship and equipping, but unexpectedly, the Lord arrested me in His love and truth right then and there, in front of everyone that attended. While being slightly embarrassed at my display, I also didn't want to this moment of rapture with the Lord to end.

It began with the first speaker, who taught a beautiful message on the love of God, one that I had heard variations of throughout my walk with Jesus. It's easy to become numb to such a message heard so often, but the reality of it is impossible to overexaggerate. In that moment, He made that love real to me again in a way that pierced my very soul. The way I described it was that as the speaker was giving the message, the Lord took the essence of the message and then brought me into a separate room to have a one-on-one conversation with me about it, all while physically, I was just sitting on the couch. With all the stresses of life and the familiar thought of "Am I doing enough (at work)? Am I enough?" I heard the Lord then so clearly say to my spirit:

"GET A B!"

Shocked, I thought "What...?"

"GET...A...B!" He boomed.

Then, I went into a vision that was so clear in my mind that all I could do was weep. He allowed me to see through His eyes, and it broke me.

In this vision, I was seeing from the perspective of a father, with his little daughter trotting up to him excitedly telling him about the good things she did or said that she hoped he would be impressed by, but it was in a way that seemed like she was trying to earn his love, acceptance, and affirmation of her value based on her performance. From the perspective of the father, I was so grieved for her. I was so sad and confused that the daughter that I love so much thought she had to strive so hard just to earn my love when that has never been the case. I just wept for her.

"Why would she think this? Where did she get this from? Why doesn't she know that I love her regardless of what she does or doesn't do, and regardless of what she could possibly do for me?"

I immediately recognized that this father-daughter relationship was a picture of me and THE Father, and while I knew intellectually, and even theologically, that I couldn't possibly earn the Father's love and that my value is not based on my performance, I suddenly realized how my actions my whole life revealed otherwise, and it was destroying me.

I began tuning back into the message being preached, and she asked the question of "How can we give away to these women what we don't have?" I realized that I severely lacked in understanding of the love of God, and that while I may not be selling myself online or dancing for men in strip clubs, I'm no different than them. I'm no different than them because I had been subconsciously seeking a performance-based, transactional kind of love with God and with people. When I had that epiphany, the Lord resounded deeply within me saying:

"You are NOT My commodity....you are my DAUGHTER. The only thing I ever told you to strive for was to enter My rest."

More tears ensued. There was no holding back at this point.

An Expanded Understanding of Faith & Works

If that weren't enough, the Lord loves teaching me more about His word when I have experiences like these to really cement them, so when I was on the way home from this event, He reminded me of the verse that says,

"Faith without works is dead" (James 2:14).

We tend to associate this verse with our works proving our faith in Jesus as messiah, which is a true statement, however, I realized that even faith in the wrong things produce works of their own by default. Our actions are a direct result of whatever we put our faith in, regardless of what we say we know. This means that we can know the truth, but believe a lie, and at the end of the day, it's our beliefs that drive us to certain actions.

This is further evidenced in the Greek word for "belief" in the New Testament--pisteuo--which is far deeper than the English word for "belief." In English, we equate belief with mere mental assent, but the Greek pisteuo is a stronger word than the English "belief." Instead, pisteuo correlates to actionable trust and allegiance to someone. It's a word that itself cannot be divorced from action.

If I told you that that the chair you were about to sit in was a sturdy chair that would hold you up, the action of sitting in it means that you believe me, in the same way that "Abraham believed (pisteuo) God, and it was credited to him as righteousness (Romans 4:3). Paul goes on to say "Now to the one who works, the wages are not credited as a favor, but as what is due. But to the one who does not work, but believes (pisteuo) in Him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is credited as righteousness" (Romans 4:4-5). It's in this passage that Paul describes how God's love isn't transactional, in that "I did X work, therefore God owes me X," which we know misses the point entirely, as Paul even says that the one that doesn't work, but believes in Him, is counted as righteous. Even Abraham, who Jews and Christians today revere as "the father of many nations," Paul speaks of him having nothing to actually boast about before God in regards to his works, despite how objectively impressive they were. God didn't care about his "performance." God was looking for actionable faith in Him above what could have been misplaced faith in his circumstances, but even above that, God just enjoyed being Abraham's friend. Notice how in James 2:23 in speaking of Abraham's relationship with God, he puts faith, righteousness, and friendship in the same sentence. This is how it was always meant to be.

Conclusion

Now, in day-to-day life, when I feel the intrusive thoughts come up about my works determining my value, I practice taking those thoughts captive (2 Corinthians 10:5). I remember the vision of the father interacting with his daughter, and how deeply he loves her regardless of her performance. He just wants her to know how much he loves being her dad, even if she's twirling around on stage, trips, and bruises a knee, or is working on a big-girl project at her big-girl job that doesn't pan out the way she thought. Or even when she gets a B. He's still there, beaming with fatherly pride, knowing that not even a less than perfect performance can disqualify her from His love. He just wants to see her set free from the lie that tells her otherwise.

Maybe this is you, too, and if so, I pray we both come to intimately know no other striving than to rest in His love, despite what the world demands. Maybe your knowledge is theologically sound, but your true, deep-seated beliefs reflect a lie you've partnered with, in which case, we need our "conscience cleansed from dead works to serve the living God" (Hebrews 9:14), which the same verse says that the blood of Christ is more than capable. Interesting how that verse equates not having a clean conscience/mind/beliefs leading to works, but only those works that are dead.

We need Jesus. We need the power of His death and resurrection. We can do nothing of ourselves. He's more than happy to be a Father to us in our weakness, and that's good news to the overachieving, perfectionist Christian like me.

The Secret Girl