ASSUMPTIONS = TRUTH + LIES

I'm writing for Five Minute Friday and today's prompt is ASSUME.  

When you're falling apart regularly at church, when normally you're 'quite chipper' as someone lovingly put it the other day, people start to wonder and they assume a lot of things.

When you're part of a small church and it's like family, most people have a rough idea of WHAT is causing your angst.    Families just know, right?  

And I get that.  

But the majority of them, those outside the inner circle in whom you confide, assume the WHY - why you're making certain decisions.    Not because they don't care, but because they don't know.   They don't know all the details and you don't actually want to tell them because it's painful and you're tired of it all because you've been wrestling with it and through it for so many months.   They also don't know HOW to help, WHAT to say, or WHY you would be choosing to walk this path.

I know, over the years, I've assumed a lot of things too, including someone's what, how and why.   But, until you've walked in their shoes, you cannot understand their WHAT or their HOW, much less their WHY.     We assume we would do something very different if it was our situation, but we haven't lived their experience, so their WHY isn't something we should assume to know.  

I didn't imagine that I would be here, choosing to go down this road (separation from my husband), after 36+ years and five children (and many more in heaven), but here we are.   

I assumed it would NEVER happen to me, to us, to our family.   Because I assumed it COULDN'T happen to me, to us, to our family.   But here we are.   Pride goeth before a fall. 

There were reasons why I assumed it wouldn't and couldn't happen.   

Firstly, my pride, and a lack of knowledge and understanding - those often go together.   

I assumed it wouldn't happen, I wouldn't let it, because I feared man more than God.   

I assumed it couldn't happen because of the wrong teaching that I absorbed over many years.   

I assumed it wouldn't happen because I was strong enough, smart enough, wise enough, persistent enough, submissive enough, just somehow enough to stop the downhill slide.   

I assumed (and was told) that it was primarily my responsibility to make it work at all costs.    

I assumed that I could fix it.    I've always been a fixer, and I assumed I could and should just try harder, do more, be more, want it more, absorb more, give more, forgive more.   

I've assumed a lot of things.   And the Lord has gradually, painstakingly, and carefully broken down each one of those assumptions into truth and lies so that I can see them clearly.  Because, let's face it, each assumption we have has a degree of truth to it - and lies.  The degrees are different, but it's always a mix of truth and lies.   

Over eighteen months, the Lord has challenged mindsets and lies and fears and guilt and wrong teaching.    And I have wrestled with Him again and again, assuming that I must be wrong, that it can't be HIM challenging my long-held assumptions about so many things.   

But, in the wrestling and the dismantling and the realisations, I've learned some truths, real truths, based on ALL of His Word, not bits of it.  I 'knew' bits of it and assumed the rest.   And hard circumstances make you question those things you assumed you knew.   And sometimes God lets it get hard so you will stop assuming, and start thinking, wondering, questioning, wrestling.   He stops patching your boat for you, and starts to let it sink.  And He asks you to stop patching it and to stop madly bailing water, so He can take it out of the water and fix it properly, if we let Him.

So, I've come to a place now where it has to be the Lord Himself who convinces and convicts me of the truth of something, not just someone's interpretation of the Word, not someone's concerned assumptions about what I should do, could do, what they would do.  

And He promises to do that for me - to be the One who convinces and convicts.   His Holy Spirit was given to me as seal, a guarantee, a Counsellor, a Teacher, a Corrector.   He promises to lead me into ALL truth, so that assumptions are weeded out.  

But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all things that I said to you.   John 14:26 

Teach me to do Your will, for You are my God; Your Spirit is good.  

Lead me in the land of uprightness.  Ps 143:10  

Show me Your ways, O Lord; teach me Your paths.

Lead me in Your truth and teach me,

For You are the God of my salvation; on You I wait all the day.  Ps 25:4,5

I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go; I will guide you with My eye.

Do not be like the horse or like the mule,

Which have no understanding...........  Ps 32:8,9

I want to walk in all truth and He promises that, and I'm finding it to be true.    He promises to lead and teach, if I submit to that, like a sheep to the Shepherd.  

But His truth has challenged so many of the things I assumed - about myself and others - which is unsettling, disorienting but also liberating.   His mercy meets the truth of my sin and my failings, and His grace ministers to my brokenness.  

Let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need.  Heb 4:16

Mercy and truth have met together; Righteousness and peace have kissed.  Ps 85:10

The Lord is near to those who have a broken heart, 

and saves such as have a contrite spirit.   Ps 34:18  

As I walk forward from here, across the waves, but upheld by His righteous right hand, in a direction I never thought I'd have to take, I want to assume nothing, and know only His truth and mercy.  

https://www.independentbaptist.com/peter-got-out-of-the-boat/

Lysa Terkeurst has been exceptionally helpful in untangling assumptions, and her sermon here has so many truths that show the way forward. 

This song, Hymn of the Holy Spirit, will become one of my new favourites I think.  

Holy Spirit, guide my vision

Help me see the way You see

Always Jesus, ever Jesus

Christ in all is Christ in me

Holy Spirit, guide my speaking

Words of grace in truth abound

Let my lips be filled with stories

Of the mercy that I've found

You're the light

You're my path

You're the shepherd of my soul

All I am

All I have

Holy Spirit, lead me on

Holy Spirit, guide my hearing

Wake my ears to words You speak

In the thunder and the stillness

Let Your voice be clear in me

Let Your voice be clear in me