There are some things I don’t have to tell you about your mental health. I don’t have to tell you you’re carrying or going to carry a sometimes difficult load. You’re going to worry about all kinds of things from your family to your job to your physical health. I regret that you know you’re going to live with anxiety; some of you are going to struggle with it on a clinical level as well as its brethren depression, despair and loneliness. I’m really sorry it’s so well accepted all of these and more are part of all our lives. Thankfully they’re not always a large part but to be human in the 21st century they seem to be our birthright. But there’s something else we get just by being followers of Christ and children of God.
We are given peace of mind when we focus on our Father in heaven. How does this work? Well, imagine the largest thing in your life right now that gives you heartburn. Think of the thing weighing on your spirit, your mind and stealing sleep and even rest when you’re awake. Now, imagine focusing on God and his power to show us solutions to our problems. Imagine focusing on God’s wisdom, an absolute wisdom, unfettered by doubts. The wisdom God offers is necessarily something we accept; after all he is God. Go one step further and imagine how your thoughts might be clearer with trust in God to show you the way if you’ll only listen. All of that clutter, all of that noise and all of that mental hand-wringing are gone. If you were able to reach that state, how free would your mind be to work in the wonderful ways God intended? Make no mistake, it can.
As mentally shot as you might feel today, it’s not God’s intention. God gave you an awesome mind and he intends that you use it. He gave you an imagination, not to conjure up all the awful possibilities that might befall you but a creativity to see your way through the challenges you encounter as you walk with him. It’s a walk that begins with gratitude not only for the gifts but for the tough stuff because that’s where you use the gifts to be a blessing to others. See how that works? Cool, isn’t it? God wants you to unleash that great brain he gave you that you’ve been carting around in the melon above your shoulders. He knows great things will happen when you do.
Sure, he’s God and he knows how things will go but there’s something else he knows. He knows all of us carry the Holy Spirit inside us and his wisdom, power and clarity of thought are released when we know the Word. Yes, the Word, as in his son. When we study and follow his son’s teaching and his ways we’re a lock. We’re a sure thing. And if you think about it, knowing God knows that about us, can we really sit here in 2017 and refute it? God’s gift, the renewal of our spirits and minds, the strengthening of our character and the filling up of our minds with all that is noble and right and pure and lovely and admirable and excellent and praiseworthy is a blessing that should inspire us to proclaim no less than: Praise God!
I don’t know about you, but that gives me a great feeling. That puts my mind at ease.
We all get bogged down from time to time, maybe too many times. My hope is that knowing these things will lift you out of the muck. Call me crazy but I don’t think God intended us to be in the muck.
I’m convinced our minds and this life are awesome things if we’ll only tap into them. I write more every week about this stuff at my blog. You can get there by clicking this. If you’d like I will send you an email on Saturdays with links to my weekly posts. All you have to do is subscribe at the blog or by clicking here. It’s free and I promise you won’t get a bunch of junk as I never sell or share emails.