Right now, Teagan and I live in a duplex. As a byproduct of living in a house that is divided into half for two tenants to share, we have connected air vents. This was perfectly fine until one of the tenants next door decided that the bathroom on the connecting wall of the house would be a great place to smoke and then turn on the fan to suck it all up and out. Needless to say, the wonderfully stale smell of smoke began seeping into our bathroom and eventually into our whole house. Yay.
To combat this, Teagan and his dad, Gim, simply stuffed a bit of insulation into the vent in the bathroom. Because of this, we cannot use the heat fan switch, you know the one that makes a ton of noise? If we were to turn it on, the insulation would be heated and possibly catch on fire or worse. We had mistakenly flipped the wrong switch a time or two, so to take the option of flipping on the incorrect switch away entirely, we took a lovely piece of duck tape and placed it over the switch in question. It is quite ugly, but it does the job. We now have our smoke free house back!
I never thought too much about the entire escapade until I was recently at work and felt tempted to dive into a worry fest. As I felt the anxiety and worrisome thoughts beaconing much like the cravings past smokers for cigarets, I also felt God using our somewhat odd bathroom vent arrangements to help me not give in. "Candace, tape over the switch".
The thought paths that I know if I go down will only lead to anxiety and fear, God was instructing me to tape over. The opportunity to dive into the fruitless task of worrisome, anxious thinking is always there. There are and will forever be things in our life, whether in our control or out of it, that we could choose to dwell on and not trust God with. We must tape over those switches.
The mind is where battles are won or lost. That might come across as quite cliche, but that fact is entirely true and important. Anything that we do in life begins with a thought saying that we can in fact do it. Projects or jobs that we may have thrived at can be abandoned before they even start if we say in our thoughts, "I can't do that". The way that an entire day goes, well or poorly, can be decided by the infant thoughts floating through our mind while we are not yet fully awake. That is why the phrase "woke up on the wrong side of the bed" exists. There is no real "wrong side of the bed", we just let our thoughts and emotions determine how our day is going to play out before the day has even happened. If we wake up with a sour attitude, chances are, the whole day is doomed from the start.
But that was never God's design. There are hundreds of scriptures in the Bible counseling us on fear, and all of them say not to fear. God's plan was never for us to live as slaves to our thoughts and emotions. He designed us to be fearless, and have a sound mind. Why do you think that in the same sentence that Paul told Timothy not to fear, he also told him that God had given him a spirit of power, love and self control? Fear is not of God. A spirit of anxiety is not what he offers. But by grace through faith, we can walk in a spirit of self control which is outside of the spirit of fear.
If you are struggling like I and so many others do to keep your mind off of worrisome paths, learn to tape over whatever is turning on your fear and anxiety. Not all situations are exactly the same, and I am not saying that they are. But as someone who has made the transition from consumed by fear to rooted and courageous in God, I can say that doing this does make a difference.
Firstly, recognize what thoughts cause you to dwell in a state of dread. Some examples that I can offer are when I have bought something and start to feel anxious about no longer having the money, feeling anxious about past mistakes I have made, or worrying about the future. Any one of those things could have a potentially negative outcome. If I am worrying about the bills, it is not without reason. But even though the outcome could be bad, dwelling on whether or not it will be offers no help to the situation. But all the logic in the world won't keep anyone from worrying. That't why there is a second step.
After you become more mindful of your thoughts, taking care to be very conscious of what you are thinking and why, the next step is to give it to God. As I said before, some of the things that we worry about do really have a bad outcome that might happen. When Jesus came to visit Mary and Martha, Martha was preoccupied with many things. Upon Martha's request that he tell Mary to help her, Jesus said, "Martha, Martha, you are anxious and troubled about many things, but one thing is necessary. Mary has chosen the good portion, which will not be taken away from her".
I am sure the things that Martha was fussing over were tasks that needed doing. But there will always be things that need to be done, things that we could worry over. We will leave this world with tasks undone. But we must choose to be like Mary, and realize where our trust should lie. We can either scurry about, living in worry and anxiousness, or we can sit in the peace of trusting the Lord to take care of us.
Whenever I feel myself start dwelling on something that causes fear to rise in me, I ask God to help me with the situation, and then I trust him. You cannot do one without the other, mind you! If you pray for God to help you, and then neglect to place your trust in him, you will continue to trudge though your day full of fear. If I were to ask Teagan to do something, but think on the inside that he won't really do it, I will still feel the weight of the task on my shoulders as if I had never said anything to him at all. The same applies to asking our heavenly Father for help. If we don't let go of the situation and trust that he will in fact be our Provider, then we will live in fear rather than peace.
I am not saying that it is easy. I have to be very aware of my thoughts, and not let myself say, "I trust you, God", and then immediately start thinking about the problem again. It might even take a few times of me mentally turning my eyes off of what is happening and all that I cannot do and back onto my Provider before I can actually let go of the situation and completely trust God. But when I am able to say, "I trust you", and sincerely believe that God has got the situation under control, the tight feeling in my chest leaves, and God's peace that passes all understanding washes over me.
As we become more aware of what we are thinking and the impact that it has on our emotions, not letting our thoughts and emotions run away with us will become easier. But if we let our thoughts run unbridled, we can very quickly find ourselves in a dark dark place. But in the same turn, if we find ourselves in any sort of darkness of the mind, God is faithful to help us whenever we call out his name! Cry out to him with deepest sincerity. He does not need you to clean up or cut out parts of you that you might not want others to see. Trust him with the thoughts you are most preoccupied with or most ashamed about, and turn your mental focus off of them and onto your loving Keeper.
Tape up what turns on your fear. Don't even give yourself the chance to flip the switch. God gives us a spirit of power, love and self control. We don't have to live as defeated slaves to our thoughts. As we dwell with the one who casts out all fears as Mary did, we will find that it really is the one thing that is necessary. No amount of human efforts or worrying will alleviate the various troubles that we face. But as we find our spot at the feet of Jesus, we will know a fullness of love and peace that only comes when we choose to take our gaze off of the various tasks and worries of the day and place it squarely on the Lover of our souls.
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