James 3:2 –
“We all stumble in many ways. Anyone who is never at fault in what they say is perfect, able to keep their whole body in check.”
If you read the last entry, you may have picked up a bit of a downtrodden vibe. You can’t be 100% positive and determined all the time. But you can be faithful even in those times of duress and difficulty. For me, faithfulness in this season has meant quietly pushing through. And that, I have been doing.
I have not posted an entry in a while. I know, I know, I made a commitment to this blog and to my redemption story and I’m not holding up my end. But there is a reason.
Returning to my family of 7, with huge ambition and plans that were sure to work became difficult when said plans did not, in fact, work. Nothing worked. Not in the way I had envisioned.
What it turned out to be was another lesson in growth and patience for myself. An endeavor to disregard any expectation recoil is an honorable idea, but to actually put it into practice is a difficult, difficult thing.
I mentioned, in a previous post, that I’ve been a bit less diligent in some areas. And that was true for a while. It was only due to the shock of intensity, the insane amount of action and responsibility of being deployed. Like I prepared for war as best I could, but to actually stand in the field proved to require a necessary bolster. I was used to boot camp… the ammo was blanks and sometimes, I got a good night’s sleep.
But let’s jump forward to right now.
This life is incredible.
Yes, there are a good amount of troubles. If I’m being honest, I’d have to admit that I don’t really get “my way” a lot and it’s something to get used to after living alone for a year. But, when each day ends, and I’ve fought off the temptations to grumble, or be selfish, judgemental, lazy, lustful, bitter, or isolated (none of these perfectly, by the way), in Jesus’ name, with the help of the Holy Spirit, by continually taking thoughts captive, thinking on what is true and excellent, and shutting my mouth down as much as possible, I get to lay in an extremely comfortable bed and look at all the successes that occured during that day.
Though my wife works overnight most nights, our two year old daughter, who has given up her pacifier habit, and has begun sleeping in her own bed since my return, and I, brush our teeth together. We say goodnight to each other (she says “bye”) and we each go to our own beds to sleep. The ceiling fan blows cool air over my resting, sore legs, and a box fan hums perfectly as it moves the air around the room. The temperature is amazing, the bed is amazing and the quiet is amazing. Some days, (not many, but some) my Bride lay next to me, her legs tangled with mine.
God is amazing. This life is amazing.
He is so good at what He does.
Sure, I complain a lot in my head, to God. I whine that the dishes don’t get done properly, or that the baby gets food everywhere, or that plans change too much and it’s hard to keep up, but God continually puts really, really fun thoughts in my head. I’m talking depression-killing, selfishness-destroying, meloncholy-wiping thoughts. It’s great! I realize very often, that what I’m whining about is actually not worth whining about. And that I don’t even care about some of the things that the enemy is trying to get me to dwell on.
I’m realizing that I really like just letting things go.
I really like being able to stay a little later at work without feeling helplessly burdened by the world.
I really like being able to take a few gut punches of unmet expectation without hardly showing a reaction.
There is so much freedom in “rolling with the punches,” even if it feels like I’m the punching bag.
It’s difficult to say which verses help the most, because, well, they all work together. They are like bumpers on a bowling lane. Our brains tend to wanna gravitate to the gutters, but quoting some verses as each negative thought comes in, stops us from actually landing in the gutter.
Cause look, every day, every situation in every life, can be entirely awful. I’m pretty sure there is no such thing as “perfection” as we understand the word to mean. And our enemy causes our minds to see the negative as if it is the biggest, most important aspect of the moment. But it’s not. It never is.
We gave our minds, our eyes, our bodies to satan when we sinned. (We were born into it, as condemned beings because of our ancestors, but…be serious, we embrace it pretty well at first.) The Bible says that satan is the god of this world. He is the god of flesh. The physical. Our senses. Our brains. When we look with our eyes, with the carnal thoughts of the flesh, we see exactly what satan wants us to see. The letdowns, the rudeness, the despair. Like there’s no way out, we’re never strong enough and God has forsaken us, or isn’t real, or isn’t actually loving at all.
But our flesh, our mind, isn’t the only part we can contemplate with.
Did you know that you can actually think other thoughts than the ones that naturally come into your mind? You can actually tell yourself what to think.
The Bible talks about this in verse six of Romans chapter eight;
“The mind governed by the flesh is death, but the mind governed by the Spirit is life and peace.”
When we get a bad thought in sight, we are pulled in, like a bowling ball drifting towards the gutter. If you’ve ever been bowling, you know, once the ball starts heading that way, it’s probably going to be a gutter ball. This is when we shake off the daze and use our spirit to recall a verse to bump us a different direction. Our little brains get a correction, but often, we find a way back to zoning into another gutter thought.
If we can’t deflect our brains every single time, away from temptation, despair, selfish thinking, then we will fail. We’ll give in to the aggravation. We’ll settle for sin. And we’ll be forced to choose what actually worsens our circumstances. This is why we must “equip” ourselves with weapons against negativity. We must put verses into our defense arsenal, our memory, so that when satan throws ten lies at you about how you’ve screwed up too bad this time, you can throw twelve verses back and say, there is no condemnation in Christ Jesus. “Though a righteous man falls seven times, he will rise again, but the wicked are suddenly destroyed without remedy.”
I cannot inundate this post with verses for you. You must go get them yourself.
This is what I have done, and continue to do. I read verses over and over again. Chapter after chapter. And when I’m attacked by temptation and lies that cause me to grumble or cry about how awful things are, I repeat them in my mind. I speak them with my mouth. I believe them in my heart instead of what comes easy… negativity.
But the mouth likes to take you down before you have a chance to stop it. So, stop it quick. Shut your lips unless you are sure to speak life into yourself!
So, I’ve been quiet. Regrouping. Renewing my thoughts. Aligning with God.
And it’s working.
I apologize for the long hiatus. And I don’t claim I’m back on schedule. But you can be sure of this; my words will not take me down.
Start thinking about what you’re thinking about. If you don’t feel it as 100% truth, if it doesn’t bring life and hope to your innermost being…change it, with a verse. You’ll see then, you really do have an option.
Life never actually sucks.
Thanks for waiting for me.
Happy Father’s Day, friends .
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