Week 2: Lies We Believe

Combatting the lie: I am defined by what people say about me.

Words can hurt and after years of sharing his life on the radio, Wally from The Wally Show has been forced to deal with many of them. You won’t believe the comments people have sent into the show, but you’ll be refreshed and surprised by his honesty about how he has handled them over the years. His insight into knowing your true identity in spite of what other people say will give you a new perspective and ground you in who you really are!

Wally says, “The key for me in this kind of scenario was learning grace. I didn’t have that for a lot of years. For me it was like, “Ok, I need to learn how to read between these lines and see why that person is hurting. And in this case, they might have their own identity messed up and they’re bringing their baggage here and putting it on me. Learning to have grace for that and look beyond that hurt helped me also change who I was and altered my identity. Now I wasn’t just this angry radio guy. I was someone who had compassion for someone who wasn’t having compassion for me…

The truth I have to come back to is that I’m flawed. That sounds like a negative, but it actually lets me understand that I have to look at myself, too, and say, “Did I make a mistake here?” Sometimes people do hit me with things and they might be right. It’s been good for me in that sense – honestly assessing myself and knowing who you truly are.

When someone comes at you, you go back to the truth in the Bible. They say say if you want to learn something, teach it. And the things that I tell people everyday: You are fearfully and wonderfully made. There’s a God of the universe that created you and intimately knows you. I want people to understand this so they know God is love and that they’re loved by God! I have to remind myself of that, too, because there are some days where I definitely don’t feel that.”

In week 2 of the World’s Biggest Small Group: Identity, we’re combatting the lies we so often believe and learning to replace them with truth. Here’s a verse to think on this week as we learn:

¹⁰The thief’s purpose is to steal and kill and destroy. My purpose is to give them a rich and satisfying life.

(John 10:10 New Living Translation)