Fake it 'til you make it.

This is the saying of the "church era/culture" I grew up in. I love the church and era I grew up in but this little saying and practice just don't work. It is totally not helpful to any part of our real lives.

I've always been a super bad faker. I've been told my expressions give me away even when I'm trying super hard. I've learned over the years, and the harder I try to fit in, or fake, to what others want to see in me, the more messed up, more contorted I become.

This time, this storm, I can't fake my way thru it, not even a little.

Maybe it's my age, maybe it's the type of storm, but either way, there is no way I'm FAKING it.

The TRUTH has set us free, so I'm skipping the fake and clinging to TRUTH.

We are set free of the screwed up expressions, free of the fake. It may look messed up, but if you keep pressing into the TRUTH, there is freedom and peace and order, not just for a moment, for eternity.

The storm still rages around us, but inside, there is peace. Jesus is with us and His Word calms us. We have tuned out the noise and the fear and tuned into Him and His Word.

If I've learned anything in my life, it's that the things God is doing take time. Yes, He can heal us in a moment, He can save us in a second, but the "time" getting to that moment, to that second, have been a lifetime of moments and seconds.

I am learning to embrace my God - given identity and not the one I try to fit into on my own.

God tells the truth, and the world gives me, FAKE it 'til ya make it.

The things in my life that I have most identified myself in, and felt the most called by God into, are the exact things that have been under the hardest attack, and looked like a failure. When the storms hit, whether in my own heart and mind or in a storm that can be seen on the outside; these are the times when I seek God the hardest and I hear His voice the clearest after the noise and the turmoil has settled down because I'm tuned in. The storms and failures want me to live in fear and shame, but when I step out in faith and hear His voice He tells the TRUTH, and I'm with HIM. He made me and He paid for this trip around the SON, so I'm hanging close and tight to Him.

1 Kings 19:11-13 New Living Translation (NLT)

11 “Go out and stand before me on the mountain,” the Lord told him. And as Elijah stood there, the Lord passed by, and a mighty windstorm hit the mountain. It was such a terrible blast that the rocks were torn loose, but the Lord was not in the wind. After the wind there was an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake. 12 And after the earthquake there was a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire. And after the fire there was the sound of a gentle whisper. 13 When Elijah heard it, he wrapped his face in his cloak and went out and stood at the entrance of the cave.

And a voice said, “What are you doing here, Elijah?”

Taking pictures can be a real snapshot of life....you get a lot of chaos and adjustments before you get the one you were looking for.