Editor's note: Enjoy today's devotion from The Lie You Don’t Know You Believe by Jennie Allen.
*
The Drift You Didn’t See Coming
Have you ever had the experience of being in the ocean, bobbing up and down in your cute baseball cap — or your wide- brimmed, straw surfer hat — and sunglasses, thinking, This is it — this is life?
You wave to your family as they hang out on the shore.
Everything is perfect.
Then, you feel it. Something pulling you. At first you think you’re just drifting. But really you’re being dragged. Not toward your family but out to sea. By the time you realize it, you’re panicking, coughing up seawater, and disoriented. You feel helpless. You feel like you’re drowning.
That’s what lies do. You bob up and down in them day after day, having no clue just how powerful their influence is, how devastating their damage can be. Then, without you realizing it, they pull you under slowly, quietly, until you can’t find your footing, until you start believing the riptide is who you are. That somehow you caused it. That you deserve to drown.
- In your desperation, you forget that there’s a way out.
But there is.
And once you gather your thoughts and name what’s really going on, seeing the current for what it truly is, you remember and start swimming sideways, fighting your way out of its pull.
Do You See Me?
As soon as I named my nagging thoughts about myself to Lauren, more memories came flooding back. There was one in particular, etched into my body like a scar I didn’t know was there. I was twelve, perched on my dad’s lap in his recliner. We were just sitting there, the way we always did. Him stretched out long and tall, me awkwardly draped across his chest, my legs dangling over the wide arm of the chair. Both of us staring up at the popcorn ceiling like it was a starry night.
We’d talk like that. Ideas. Hopes. Dreams. But something changed as I got older. It became harder to find things we had in common — and that’s when the questions started. He meant no harm. I know that now.
But back then, what I felt — what I knew — was that there were categories in life. And those categories came with expectations. Whether he was asking me about boys or grades or sports, I never quite seemed to clear the bar.
Have you ever felt that?
The pain of almost. The sting of being seen but not quite celebrated. The silence that sinks into your bones and quietly whispers, You’re not enough.
I’ve shared before about the long, healing conversations my dad and I have had since then, and how God has brought so much grace between us. But this is the piece I want you to see. Because that high bar I felt growing up? It didn’t come from nowhere. It came from somewhere real — his own story. His own ache.
My dad was raised by a mother who loved him deeply. I know that without question. But like many in her generation, that love was expressed through carefulness, correction, and the hope that high standards would lead to a good life. She was doing her best with what she had been given. And so was he.
The day I realized that his expectations were shaped by the ones shaped for him, something in me softened. Suddenly I understood why visits to my grandparents carried a certain weight: what we wore, how we sat, how we smiled. It wasn’t about image. It was about inheritance.
That’s when it hit me:
The lie didn’t start with me.
But it was trying to make a home in me.
And unless I named it, I would keep living under its shadow.
That’s the terrifying thing about the lies we live with. They don’t show up with red flags. They show up like truth.
Like evidence.
Like a personality trait or a humble admission.
But they’re not truth.
And what’s worse? They’re not passive. They serve us. They explain away rejection. They prepare us for disappointment. They make us feel safe — even when they’re suffocating us. You don’t just believe a lie. You enter into its world. You adopt its kingdom, and the only way out? Well, it’s not just a better thought. It’s a better kingdom. A truer story.
So that night with Lauren, I named the lie. I fought it.
And I began to live free of it.
Free Of It
John 8:32 is one of those Bible verses that has transcended religious boundaries:
Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.
But these weren’t John’s words. Jesus spoke them. And He said them to anyone who’d listen. What did He mean by it? What is this truth? And how does it set me free? What am I free from?
I can tell you one thing: The freedom I found didn’t come through striving. It came through light: God’s light. The kind that reveals the truth and holds you steady in it. The light didn’t shame me for believing the lie. It didn’t rush the healing. It simply reminded me:
I see you.
I have you.
You are mine.
That’s what this light does. It names things truthfully. It cuts through the silence. And when you see it again — and I mean really see it — you start to remember who you are.
Please hear me: This isn’t just about feeling better about yourself. When you live under the pull of these lies, you don’t just suffer. You also miss your calling. The unique work God designed specifically for you remains undone. This matters for all of us. It matters for me. It matters for my husband, Zac, and our four kids — Kate, Conner, Caroline, and Cooper. It matters for the work God has called me to through IF:Gathering. When I'm living under the pull of lies, I don't just miss peace. I miss the life God designed specifically for me.
When Jesus said the truth will set you free, He was saying you can be free from darkness. Not the darkness of night but the Darkness — with a capital D — that controls this world. That Darkness fights hard to keep you believing the lie because your freedom matters, not just for your peace but for your purpose — how your life affects the world.
It’s ironic that You’re worthless is my core lie. If you follow me, you might think, But she helps people. She teaches the Bible. She leads movements.
And yet the ache remained.
I told Lauren, “Sometimes, when I’m in the thick of things with family, work, and ministry, it feels like... what’s the point?”
How many times have you said that?
She could see I wasn’t being dramatic. I was being honest.
She prayed. Asked God to pull back the layers of lies and illuminate the truth of who I was. And what we found underneath the ache was a deeper longing: to be known — to matter. Not because of what I do. But because of who I am.
And isn’t that what truth really is? Not performance. Not productivity. Just being.
- Being seen. Being loved. Being remembered by God.
We all feel our lies in different ways.
A friend with an eating disorder who punishes herself with impossible standards.
A man stuck in a job he hates because he thinks his past abuse defines his future.
A woman who avoids love because she’s sure it won’t last.
A high achiever who works herself sick trying to prove her worth.
A young man who never risks anything because he’s afraid to fail.
A mom who’s convinced she’s not enough — no matter how hard she tries.
We all carry something. And most of the time we don’t even know what it is. But the symptoms of the lies pop up and derail us. Sometimes when I feel anxious — not every time, but sometimes — my chest gets tight. I remember on this one particular day, it wasn’t just tight. It hurt. It felt like my heart was aching, physically.
We happened to be with a friend who’s a cardiologist. I told him what I was feeling — part of me bracing, wondering if he was going to tell me to get to the hospital. But instead he smiled gently and said, “You might want to try some Pepcid AC.”
That was his kind, clinical way of saying, “This isn’t your heart. It’s your stress, kiddo.” Anxiety seems to find all of us eventually. And I’m weary — not just from the racing thoughts or the chest pain but from always treating symptoms while ignoring the deeper problems underneath.
That’s why we’re here, right?
We’ve gotten really good at blaming our symptoms on physical causes, and sure, sometimes that’s true. But it certainly doesn’t stop there. There’s often a soul beneath the surface begging to be seen, asking to be healed from the heavy darkness of our core lie.
The God Who Remembers You
What’s the lie you believe?
Maybe an even better question is this: What truth have you forgotten?
Here’s what I’ve come to believe. The truth has always been there. It’s not something you invent or achieve. It’s what’s real.
It’s what God says about you. And it’s stronger than the lie.
The Darkness — this enemy of our souls, Satan — can’t create anything new. All he can do is distort and disguise what already exists. What God made in light and love, the Darkness tries to bury in confusion and shame. The Darkness builds shadowlands that are false realities mimicking the shape of the real thing but hollow at the core.
And that’s the fight — not just against lies but against forgetting.
Forgetting what’s true.
Forgetting who you are.
Forgetting what God has already said.
Now, here’s the wild part. Lies affect us personally, but there’s something bigger at play. Even as I write this, I’m living through a season soaked in miracle, a season of revival.
I feel like Lucy of The Chronicles of Narnia, riding on the lion Aslan’s back, galloping through the land seeing foes vanquished and the land reborn. There are still witches and monsters, yes. But also wonder. Light. Beauty I never imagined. And that’s the hope of this book. Not just that you’ll identify the lie but that you’ll rediscover the wonder. That you’ll ride with the King, free of the Darkness of lies.
My friends and I have been traveling to college campuses across the country with a ministry called Unite. We’re seeing students surrender to Jesus in droves. Thousands. We’re baptizing people who walked in with suicidal thoughts and walked out shining. People stepping out of addiction, anxiety, and confusion, and into calling, clarity, and light.
At the same time this ministry began, our team launched a global call to prayer called Gather25. On March 1, 2025, over seven million people joined in worship from every continent in eighty-seven languages. That’s not marketing. That’s God.
So yes, I’ll say it. It feels like revival. I’ve never seen anything like it. I’m watching a generation wake up and step into the light of who God made them to be, and it has changed me. It’s strengthened my faith beyond measure. We’re not doing anything flashy. We’re preaching the Word. We’re confessing sin. And God is moving.
But here’s what else is true: I’ve never faced this much spiritual warfare in my life.
It’s not subtle.
Not theoretical.
It’s real.
Because Darkness doesn’t go quietly when the Light breaks in. But make no mistake — the Light always breaks in.
And here’s what I want you to remember.
Revival doesn’t just happen on college campuses or event stages. It breaks open in living rooms, with your closest friend praying for the light of truth in your life. In whispered midnight prayers. In the moment you name the lie and refuse to believe it anymore.
The same Light I’m seeing break into college campuses is the same Light that broke into my story. And you know what? It can break into yours too. Because this war we’re in? It’s not just happening out there. It’s happening in you, and that’s fine because for the next two hundred pages, you and me? We’re taking our truth back. We’re naming our enemy and telling its lies to go to hell.
Excerpted with permission from The Lie You Don’t Know You Believe by Jennie Allen, copyright Jennie Allen Ministries, LLC.
* * *
Your Turn
Think about it: What lie do you believe? What truth have you forgotten? The enemy’s goal is to take us down. Do you see the current? See the situation for what it is and swim sideways out of the current with Jesus! ~ Devotionals Daily
