The Number One Verse to Not Get Wrong

 PSA: if you are an adult scapegoated kid, grew up in a chaotic home or grew up under covert narcissistic control -- this blog post is for you. 

Colossians 3:23: "Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord." 

Why this is a critical verse to abide by... accurately. Let's talk about the "accuracy". 

"Whatever" needs to be aligned with your needs, desires, goals and vision for your life. 

"Whatever" is not any kind of pursuit that leads to suffering and torture of the mind, heart, body or soul. 

"Whatever" is any endeavor that is pleasing to the Lord. If we take this last statement as our baseline, here's what we can gather about what to do with our time, our energy our efforts: 

The endeavors you take part in do not "trap" you. They do not force you to endure some form of harm or abuse, self-belittling or abandonment, in order to receive something on the other side of that "transaction". There is no suffering, period. There is no self-betrayal, period. The endeavors you take part in will contribute to building your life on a firm foundation of truth, peace and love. The endeavors you take part in do not need to be ministerial in nature, though they require a level of service to execute. The endeavors you take part in do not have to be religious in order to contribute to the work of the kingdom of God. The kingdom of God is bigger than your family, your neighborhood, your church. Your job is to show up in joyous pursuit, and leave the inner transformation to the Holy Trinity. 

Whether you identify with the experiences in my beginning sentence of this post, or you've experienced religious trauma of any sort -- manipulation of the truth happens when "whatever... working for the Lord" takes you away from connection with, in a walk with God himself. Looking at my personal experience, I believed a lie around this verse for decades, and what's worse is the lie was continually endorsed. The lie being, that the "whatever" in this verse can and should even include a hierarchy of suffering as a means to earned freedom, as well as sacrifice of my own life, the endeavors I wanted to pursue, so that I could save and fix others from their own pain, sin, and suffering. 

Listen to me: it is not your job. 

If God didn't ask you to do something, it's not your job. Cause let's be real: He knows all the pressures we go through just for being human alone, He knows the real threat of darkness, evil and principalities in this world that are only after possession of or death of ourselves. He knows all this.

So if He isn't going to take a risk with your one precious life, by guiding, encouraging, sometimes strong-arming you to live a straight life, whole and pure -- be real with me, why are you? Before I lose you here, keep this simple. If you're 90% water and the water's pH levels are not balanced.. if the water gets contaminated.. you have to clean that ish out of your system. That's what "living water" means -- it's that the "water" what you consume and partake in, in this life, helps you continue living. Not surviving, not breaking even, living. 

Whether you are ready to admit it or not, this is what we all know: you learned it wrong, as I learned it wrong. You are not invincible -- you are only human. So do yourself the best act of self-love that you can do, and reject the false teachings, lies and manipulations you adapted to. Abandon them. 

If you're asking the question, then how do I know it's God asking me to do something, to join him in collaboration? How can I trust my mind, after I have been so far deceived, blindly led into habits of self-betrayal? 

Back to it: truth, peace, love. Is it nurturing the life you envision for yourself? Is it something that grounds you? Is it asking you to step up and ascend into your next level of agency and self-mastery, of connection with others? Not blindly throwing yourself at things left and right, ascending in your path of alignment. Don't overthink this, make it real simple and keep it down to earth. God may ask you to join Him in places where He will take your breath away by the pure love and beauty He brings into that space in your life. But if you are losing connection with your breath, your physical body, by means of anxiety and dissociation -- these things are not of God. If you are feeling stretched out of bounds, thin, lacking substance of yourself, these endeavors are not of God. The only rule God gave us, which those of us who struggle with mental health issues forget to implement is this: the rule of containment --  staying out of bounds of what's not designed for us.

Without solid structure, water in the well will seep back into the ground. 

Silence and calm your mind and protect your peace. The enemy knew what he was doing attacking this first: Eve's intuition, understanding of reality, and obedience to God. This is an unwavering truth of life to accept, not fight your entire life against. 

If there's no peace, it's not of God. And God will never ask you to do something without His peace available to you, when you ascend into your next level. 

Keep it simple. 

-B