I listened to a lot of Patch the Pirate when I was young.
Don't worry if you don't know who that is. The important thing is
that I learned some valuable life lessons from these programs during my
formative years. One such lesson was that I was a worrier and I needed to
stop. I come by it honestly to be sure and the struggles my parents are
having with worry have made me take a look at myself and realize to my
astonishment that the Lord has been working on me in that area. I'm not
worry free, but I have gained some skills, thanks to the Lord, in how to deal
with it in a healthy way. You see, I looked at my dad a couple of weeks
ago and told him he really needed to stop worrying and he looked straight back
at me and said "It's not like a light switch I can turn off".
Nobody wants to worry. It's an awful feeling and has been proven to
adversely affect our health. I remember feeling that exact same way
though. If I could have found the switch I would have turned it off too. So
what happened that helped me find the switch? We'll get to that, but
first...you should listen to the song that inspired me when I was young...and
still does.
I worry *snort, snort* worry *snort, snort* all my time away....
ah, memories. Now on to business.
Because worry is a common problem, it is important to address it
as a minion for many reasons. Worry can rob us of the stamina necessary
for ministry work because it's exhausting and there is too much to be done to
waste it worrying. It's crippling and imprisoning. It steals our
creativity and our joy. But how do you stop doing it?
My Bible Study group knew we wanted to study HOW to take our
thoughts captive. We know the Bible says to do it but HOW? So we
started to look for material that would help us practice and learn how to ...
2 Corinthians 10:5New International Version (NIV)
5 We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.
What we
found was this:
by Jennifer Rothschild
I can't
tell you how often me and my ladies have brought up what we learned from this
study or how profoundly it affected us. Don't get me wrong, this isn't an
advertisement . We found woefully few studies focused on the how to's of
"don't worry", and "take every thought captive". This
study was about our destructive inner monologues.
It's true
that my inner monologue was and is full of negative self talk. How about
yours? Go ahead and think about it, I'll wait......that's what I thought.
Don't worry, you're not alone.
As I was
listening to the book of Matthew today Jesus said
“Do you
not yet realize that whatever enters the mouth goes into the stomach and then
is eliminated? But the things that come out of the mouth come from the heart, and
these things defile a man.
Matthew 15:17-18
There is
a list of things in the following verses given as examples of what defiles a
person including evil thoughts, slander and false testimony. I used to
think that was all spewing from the heart into the world but I failed to realize
that our hearts and minds are in concert in this area. What we believe
about ourselves informs how we interact with the world. Proverbs
12 tells us that, “As a man thinks, so is he.”
Rothschild
reminded us that chopping off the root of the lies that we tell ourselves is
vital to a practical working out of 2 Cor 10:5. It doesn't take the enemy
a lot of effort to use the lies we are already used to telling ourselves.
They are comfortable and familiar. It takes effort and attention to
listen to what's going on in our headspace, figure out the root of the lie and
replace it with truth.
When I
was younger, I tried quoting verses or thinking about something Philippians 4:8 approved.
Finally,
brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right,
whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable--if anything is
excellent or praiseworthy--think about such things.
It felt
like a stop gap and never really worked. Perhaps it was the vanity of
youth or perhaps it just wasn't enough. For me, what has worked is
knowing and identifying the falsehood, the lie that is driving not only the
negative behavior but the negative thoughts in my head. If I fill my head
with scripture on top of my wrong assumption I am more likely to try and fit
what God has said into the context of what I already believe. If I deal
with the lie first, then replace it with God's truth, I have a clean space.
It's a release. Letting go of the lie isn't always easy.
We've told some of them to ourselves for most of our lives.
Sometimes it’s hard to tell the difference between the healthy and the
destructive. It is a deeply personal journey and is bound to have some
false starts.
Like I
said, it takes work and perseverance. Recognize the lie, refuse it and then
replace it with the truth. Sure it sounds simple but it's anything but.
I can tell you with absolute certainty that it's worth the effort.
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