The gospel provides freedom from the fear of invalidation.
Before they disobeyed God and fell from grace, Adam and Eve knew nothing about fear. Afterward, sin began its deadly work of twisting their souls. Where before there had been innocent bliss, afterward they felt guilt, shame, and fear. Whereas before they had openly walked and conversed with God, afterward they hid from him. Before they had simply accepted their identity and security in God; since then all of that came into question. Our first parents were removed from their original home, a judgment was pronounced over them, and a horrendous reaping process began. God’s warning that they would die if they ate the forbidden fruit began to take effect. The first thing that died was their glorious spiritual connection to the Creator, which supplied them with everything they needed for joyful living.
After judgment began, Adam and Eve and all their descendants have had to try to figure out who they were and are apart from God.
Humans began a journey of attempting to “discover themselves,” instead of understanding and embracing their identity and purpose as received from the Creator. When we look inside to find the answer, sadly, we end up being confused and lost.
We can only know who we are in relationship to our Creator.
Invalidation is related to two other fears – rejection and abandonment. These three fears are intertwined and faced by everyone on the earth to one degree or another.
Invalidation is the result of not being properly affirmed, leaving us, depending on our personalities, in some condition of insecurity.
Invalidated parents usually have no idea how to affirm their children, causing a potentially endless repetition of dysfunction. Invalidated individuals tend to be insecure. Often they are desperately looking for others to affirm them, making them vulnerable to those who would use their fears against them. Rejection is what we experience when others do not like or accept some or all of who we are or what we say or do. It may involve some sort of exclusion or shunning. Abandonment is the final stage of invalidation and rejection. Abandoned people are forced to be on their own, alone in life. This article will focus on invalidation. The next one will address rejection and abandonment.
It is easy to see how invalidation is connected to our broken relationship with God.
Unless God himself affirms us, we will never know who we are.
Sin broke our connection with the Creator, leaving us “unplugged” from our proper source of validation. Every other source for affirmation is inferior and unable to satisfy.
The French philosopher Blaise Paschal wrote:
What else does this craving, and this helplessness, proclaim but that there was once in man a true happiness, of which all that now remains is the empty print and trace? This he tries in vain to fill with everything around him, seeking in things that are not there the help he cannot find in those that are, though none can help, since this infinite abyss can be filled only with an infinite and immutable object; in other words by God himself. (Ichthus)
Jesus came into this world without ever having had to experience the results of Adam’s sin. He was not under its curse or judgment, he did not have an innate sin nature, and he was not cut off from his Father. As a result, he had no gaping hole in his soul crying out for validation. Nevertheless, his Father wonderfully validated him at the beginning of his public ministry for all to hear and see, which is what all good fathers do.
...a voice from the cloud said, “This is my dearly loved Son, who brings me great joy. Listen to him.” Matthew 17:5 (NLT)
Here Father God shows us what it looks like to properly validate a person. He made known to his Son and to all of us who would later put our faith in Christ what it means to be a child of God. Below is an explanation.
- Dearly loved son. The essence of validation is to be loved for no other reason than we are a child of the Father. (1 John 3:1) Children are meant to experience unconditional love. We are invalidated when that love is withheld or conditioned upon our earning or keeping it in some fashion or another. Because of sin, apart from Christ, none of us is ever “good enough” to deserve God’s love. We know in the depths of our souls that we deserve to be excluded, but the gospel undoes the lethal effects of sin and opens the door for us to receive supreme validation from our Father. Every person needs to hear God speak these words into his or her heart, just as Jesus heard them. When you read these words in the Bible, ask the Holy Spirit to minister them to you personally.
- Brings me great joy. This part of validation affirms that we are delighted in not only for simply being a son or daughter, but also because we bring joy and pleasure to the Father’s heart. It is one thing to be loved in spite of our faults and sins, but quite another to actively create joy in the beholder. Another way to put this is that God not only loves us: he likes us! It is extremely invalidating to find out we are loved because we are in the family but not liked at all. God likes us not because we deserve it, but because Jesus earned God’s approval for us. His Spirit resides in every believer, joined to our own spirits. How can God not like us? Every child of God needs to hear that he or she is well-pleasing from Father God in order to experience validation.
- Listen to him. This final part of validation tells us that we are significant. We are not some sort of trophy of grace to be set on a shelf and observed, but has no real function. We have been given an important part to play in God’s plan and have something important to say. We are highly regarded by God and should be by those who know and love the truth. Many of those people who experience the first two aspects of validation, do not receive this part. God wants every child of his to know how important he or she is to the work of the kingdom and to engage in that work.
Invalidated people struggle with feeling loved, appreciated, and significant. It is hard for them to fulfill their callings from God because of the hole in their souls.
In order to experience remediation, one of the most important things we can do is approach God the Father and ask him to minister his loving words of validation to us personally. A good place to start is by meditating upon the verse quoted above, asking the Holy Spirit to reveal to us at a heart level their meaning.
Here is another great verse to consider.
No man has ever seen God at any time; the only unique Son, or the only begotten God, Who is in the bosom [in the intimate presence] of the Father, He has declared Him [He has revealed Him and brought Him out where He can be seen; He has interpreted Him and He has made Him known]. John 1:18 (AMP)
Jesus alone truly knows the Father, and he came to make him known to us.
“My Father has entrusted everything to me. No one truly knows the Son except the Father, and no one truly knows the Father except the Son and those to whom the Son chooses to reveal him.” Matthew 11:27 (NLT)
Jesus died on the cross and rose again to enable us to enter into a relationship with his Father.
He wants us to know the Father’s love, and he will reveal the Father to all who ask him. (Matthew 7:7) Knowing the Father is eternal life and completely validating (John 17:3). Once we know him, it is our privilege to come boldly and confidently into his presence on a regular basis to spend time with him, talk to him, and listen to what he has to say. (Ephesians 3:12) We also have the life-transforming privilege of reading and meditating on his Word. Jesus told us that the Holy Spirit is the one who teaches us and reveals to us the meaning of God’s words, applying them to our hearts so that we can know, believe, and receive all the benefits. (John 14:26)
In order to overcome the fear of invalidation, we must first come to God, the only real source of validation, through believing the gospel.
If we confess our sin of rebellion and insubordination, trusting Christ to forgive us, and declare allegiance to the resurrected and reigning Lord of lords, we will be saved. (Romans 10:9-10) Then we can allow the Spirit of God to do his validating work in our lives, setting us free from the residue of lies that invaded and entrenched themselves in our hearts and minds when we were lost and separated from God’s truth.
Knowing that we are sons and daughters of the Creator God will set us free to overcome the related fears of rejection and abandonment that plague the souls of so many. I will cover those fears in the next article. In the meantime, consider the following.
But when the right time came, God sent his Son, born of a woman, subject to the law. 5 God sent him to buy freedom for us who were slaves to the law, so that he could adopt us as his very own children. 6 And because we are his children, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, prompting us to call out, “Abba, Father.” 7 Now you are no longer a slave but God’s own child. And since you are his child, God has made you his heir. Galatians 4:4-7 (NLT)
Prayer
Father God, I now realize that you are the only one who can fill the hole in my soul. Thank you for sending your only son to make the only way for me to be reconciled to you. I confess my sin of going my own way. I thank you for forgiving me and setting me free. I confess that Jesus is risen from the dead, and I surrender to his lordship. Holy Spirit, thank you for coming into my life. I ask you to fill me up and teach me everything I need to know about God and his Word. I give myself to you. Use me as you see fit to help others and spread the Good News. Amen.
