My dear reader,
I’m going to write you a letter this morning and tell you some god honest truth. Today, driving into work, was one of the hardest drives of my little life. Not because of unfortunate weather elements that always leave me with perfectly white knuckles and aching arms from gripping the steering wheel too tight. Nor was it because I encountered or caused an accident or had any construction to go around. Nope, dear reader, it was because a few thoughts hit me square in the face.
And oh, how they hit me hard. Distracting and destructing everything in their path.
The problem with these thoughts, my dear friend, is that all of them were covered on the outside with truth. These things did really happen to me within the last week. They all weren’t fabricated colorful lies my extremely imaginative brain made up on the fly, they were all very very much true. At least the first part of them. The outside costumes they wore convinced me to hear them out.
However, the next few parts of the stories weren’t true at all. And while, yes, I knew they were lies deep down in my heart, I still wanted to hear what they had to say. Almost instantly the thoughts left me with a sinking feeling in my chest and aches throughout my body, down to my toes. The thoughts drowned out any part of me that didn’t want to believe them, so that all I could see in front of me (besides the road) were these new thoughts and new feelings dancing in front of me in a fast paced hand jive.
They were ready for the 24 hour dance marathon. They were ready to keep every part of my heart and soul fixated on their colorful lies and deceit. My clenched stomach and heart already surrendered, pounding along to the beat.
Until I yelled STOP! Literally I did out loud. (The stuffed animal I got for Christmas that rides in my passenger seat is probably now deaf.)
That’s how it starts.
It all starts in our heads.
It all starts with our thoughts.
If we don’t keep them in check, if we don’t stand guard over every thought that pops into our little heads, if we don’t surrender each and every one of them for questioning, it’s going to be a long and bloody battle for our lives.
My daily commute is a solid thirty minutes one way and it wasn’t until I pulled on the street of my work place did I realize that I had spent 28 of those 30 minutes completely wrecked. Wrecked by something that while it started out being truthful, the more it populated my mind, the most untrue it became.
I’m not sure what you believe about the Bible, but there’s a verse in there that makes the fact that we all need little checkpoints in our heads so evidently clear.
“We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ…” 2nd Corinthians 10:5
We must take every thought captive and focus on what is true, honorable, right, pure, lovely and admirable (Philippines 4:8).
Every thought that enters our little minds, we must let it pass through security before it becomes an atomic bomb, killing every truth in its path. Because once we think it, how long friend, how long will it be until we act like it’s true? Until that sneaky little lie dressed up so fine becomes our actions and how we live our life.
Please join me on this fight, friend. Let’s draw our swords together and stand arm in arm as we fight these lies. Recognize them for who and what they are and attack them with all the strength we have to muster.
Our lives and relationships are too valuable. There is too much at stake to be passive.
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What about you, my sweet friend? Do you have any barriers you put into place when your thoughts start heading down the dangerous slide of doubt and questioning? What works for you to “snap out of it” so to speak? I would love to hear about it in the comments!
