Ransom and the un-man

do you ever fight negative thoughts so much that you feel like you're losing your mind?
i know the truth. i know His voice as though it were a friend calling me on the phone. i know the enemy's voice just as well. and yet, i still succumb to the voice that isn't speaking love towards me.
what have i been believing? lies mostly, at least the last few weeks. what lies? that my life is worthless, that i have no purpose, and i'm not doing anything worth anything. and what do you do when i voices telling you the lies are so much louder than anything else? as i mentioned before, i know His voice. and i know what's true. yet when all you can here, over and over again, is a lie, it starts getting to you.
i would liken it to this: pretend you're a young child, and as you leave for school, your mom tells you that she loves you. you believe her without a shadow of a doubt, because she's told you over and over again your whole life, and her actions have followed her words. yet the second you leave, someone walks next to you, and all day, never leaves your side, whispering in your ear that your mother hates you.
you know without a doubt that your mother was not telling a lie.. that she really does love you. but when the voice present is repeatedly telling you the opposite, and your mother's voice is only a memory in your mind, it's nearly impossible not to let the lie affect you.

i hope that made sense.
so my battle has been, what do you do when this happens to you in the spirit? when you know the Truth, and what God has said, but the lie is what seems to be real in the moment? if you can't shut it up or drown it out?
i wrote yesterday about the meeting at church.. these were the thoughts and lies that i was freed from. but why couldn't the freedom come sooner? or at least, why couldn't i push back the lie and believe what was true, even though it was only a whisper in my mind? this is something i really want, and need, to learn!

i was talking to my dear friend Heidi last night about all of this, and in the middle of explaining everything i'd been feeling, a passage from one of the best books i've ever read came into my mind. the book is Perelandra by C.S. Lewis. it's a novel, but one of the most thought-provoking, mind boggling things i've ever read. the passage was a confrontation between Ransom, the "hero" or the story, and the un-man.. to explain the un-man would take a very long time, so let's just say he represents the enemy. it's as simply as i can go with his character. here's the passage...

"Ransom," it said again.
"What is it?" said Ransom sharply.
"Nothing," it answered.
again there was silence; and again, about a minute later, the horrible mouth said:
"Ransom!" This time he made no reply. Another minute and it uttered his name again; and then, like a minute gun, "Ransom... Ransom... Ransom," perhaps a hundred times.
"What the Hell do you want?" he roared at last.
"Nothing," said the voice. Next time he determined not to answer; but when it had called on him a thousand times he found himself answering whether he would or no, and "Nothing," came the reply. He taught himself to keep silent in the end: not that the torture of resisting his impulse to speak was less than the torture of response but because something within him rose up to combat the tormentor's assurance that he must yield in the end. If the attack had been of some more violent kind it might have been easier to resist. What chilled and almost cowed him was the union of malice with something nearly childish. For temptation, for blasphemy, for a whole battery of horrors, he was in some sort prepared: but harddly for this petty, indefatigable nagging as of a nasty little boy at a preparatory school.

okay, first of all, let me define a word: indefatigable means incapable or seemingly incapable of being fatigued; tireless.

so this voice, the voice of the un-man, was trying to exhaust him, and overwhelm him, with a battery on his ears, his emotions, and his will. and hearing something that horrible say your name repeatedly would be maddening. its persistence tried to convince that it would keep going until he gave in; eventually, he would have to surrender to it. but it was a lie. later in the same chapter, as Ransom continues to ignore the voice, he eventually falls asleep. when he awakens, the voice is silent. he refused to give in, and because of that decision, he won a battle that would give him an advantage in the following war.so my prayer is that i would learn to ignore the voice that tells me lies.. that tells me the opposite of what i know is true, even when all i hear of the Truth is a whisper in my memory.