It’s six am, the alarm clock, blaring, starts the tone of the day. You jump up disoriented, heart racing, and dash out of bed to shower before stumbling over piles of clothes strewn over the floor. Little Johnny starts screaming at the top of his lungs. “Where is that baby sitter?! She’s usually here by …” before you can complete the sentence the phone rings and you hear a quaint voice on the answering machine, “Hello…aah… hi Ms. Outtaorder, I’m not going to be able to come in today, something came up.” “The nerve of that little wench! She’s supposed to be here already!” you quip. You sprint out of the shower, rummage through the accumulated junk compiled in your room that hasn’t been cleaned in two weeks, and find your phone book nestled underneath a plate of half-eaten, rotten Chinese food that exposed the deathly odor you had been trying to pin point. You scramble through the phone book leaving messages out of desperation to every relative, church member, ex-boyfriend, ex-boyfriend’s girlfriend trying to find a replacement sitter. “If you come to work late one more time, it will result in your termination!” your cantankerous boss’ voice resonates in the back of your mind. After leaving a barrage of messages as a result of unanswered calls, you hang up the phone in despair; hair dripping wet, car keys in hand, and little Johnny straddled across your hip. Tears start to stream down your face as scenes of a crumbling life play out in your mind’s eye. You plop down on the bed and begin to question God: “Lord my life is a mess! My husband left me, I don’t know how I’m going to pay the mortgage this month, and how am I going to raise this son that you have given me? ‘Lord, I don’t understand, I walked away from the world and gave my life to you and accepted you as my Savior, since then everything has gone wrong in my life!”
This is cry of many hearts today. You thought you had your life all figured out. You had dreams, goals and a clear direction for your life. But yet along the way you have faced nothing but wrong turns, disappointment, and despair. When you were younger you had so much zest and zeal and you started out with great enthusiasm. You may have spent years trying to climb the proverbial corporate ladder, chase a childhood dream, or start your own business only to have been faced with closed doors, rejection, discrimination, or could only go so far in your company. Ten or more so years later you find yourself at the end of own strength. You have allowed anger, bitterness, and despondency to become the lord of your life. Although you may have accepted Christ into your life you are still not walking in the fullness of His power. Every area of your life is broken and you have come to the realization that you are the common denominator. You have let years of discouragement, failure, and defeat beat down your door. Maybe you have lost all hope and cannot possibly fathom a better life for yourself. Perhaps God has bought you to your end so He can give you a new beginning. Perhaps He is directing your steps so you could have a full life in Him. Beloved, this cross roads is where many of us make the wrong turn and walk out of Jesus’ path.
In the book of Acts in the New Testament, after God convicted Paul because of his persecution of the Christian church, God gave Ananias a vision and sent him to Paul (then named Saul) to speak the word of the Lord concerning Paul’s life (Acts 9:10-18 NKJV). In Vs13, Ananias answered, “Lord I have heard from many about this man, how much harm he has done to your saints in Jerusalem.” The Bible says that the Lord told Ananias that Paul is a choosen vessel and that he will bear “My name.” Moreover the Lord professed, “For I will show him how many things he must suffer for My name’s sake.” After Ananias laid hands on Paul the scales fell off his eyes and he was filled with the Holy Spirit. Beloved, God opened Paul’s spiritual eyes and set his soul afire for the word of the Lord. So much so that Paul traveled from the road of Damascus to as far as Thessalonia to establish the Gospel of Jesus Christ. It was out of Paul’s own oppression and reports of Christian persecution of established churches that the letter to the Thessalonian church was written. In Thessalonians 3:3 Paul tells the church, “ that no one should be shaken by these afflictions; for you yourselves know that we are appointed for this.” Paul reminds the church that when he was with them before, how he told them Christians will have to suffer tribulation.
When God called Paul out of a sinful and rebellious life, He clearly told him that he would have to endure many hardships on this journey. However, when Paul accepted God’s invitation to be filled with the Holy Spirit that allotted him boldness and courage to defeat his enemies. Many of us may have started out like Paul on the road to Damascus: full of hate, judgment, bitterness, and autonomy. You may have let wrong thinking direct your life and because of it you have become your own worst enemy. Many people are living powerless and defeated simply because they have not accepted Christ, and/or asked the Holy Spirit to come into their lives. Paul’s letters still apply to us today, he warns us that as Christians we will be afflicted for the gospel’s sake, but saints it’s the Holy Spirit that will give us the strength to overcome any trial we face.
Repeat this prayer: “Holy spirit, I ask you to come into my heart and lead me. I release the spirit of negative thinking, anger, and bitterness right now. Direct my thoughts and my actions everyday, and help me to walk in a spirit of love towards myself as well as others, in Jesus’ name. Amen!”
Beloved, if we are to be triumphant in this Christian walk it will require diligently guarding our minds. In her book “Battlefield of the mind,” Joyce Meyer emphatically states that our mind is the battlefield. To proclaim victory over any area of our life we must first win the battle in our mind! We must renew our thinking! Whatever darts satan throw at us we can render them powerless by edifying ourselves daily in the word.
2 Corinthians 10:5 teaches us how to stand against the war that rages in the mind by “casting down arguments and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ.”
Moreover, Ephesians 4:31 admonishes us to “Let all bitterness, wrath, anger, clamor and evil speaking be put away from you, with all malice.” Many people, unmindful, speak death over their lives by their words (Proverbs 18:21). I cannot tell you how many Christians make the mistake of speaking pessimistically regarding the affairs of their lives. Words flow out of the abundance of the heart (Luke 6:45)! Saints, we must get in the habit of speaking, in the name of Jesus, blessings over our lives no matter what it looks like in the physical realm. Lastly, along with renewing our mind, and guarding our tongue must ask God to purify our hearts. (Psalm 51:10).
