Hold on a moment!
I’m going to do a magic trick.
I’m going to disappear right in front of your eyes. Here it goes. (I put my hands over my eyes.)
Hey did it work?
Did I disappear? Have you ever
played a hide and seek game like that with a child? She goes over in the corner and closes her
eyes. And she is absolutely certain that
you can’t see her. You might even play
along. In fact, that’s what makes it
fun.
But in a very real way, you are still playing that
game. Except in this game, you’re not
only hiding from others. You are hiding
from yourself too. Every day, thoughts
capture you, resentful thoughts, fearful thoughts, all types of twisted
thinking. But you think if you close
your eyes to them, they’ll go away or at least you’ll go away from them. But they don’t go away. And you don’t go away from them, any more
than I disappeared when I covered my eyes.
Instead, these thoughts hijack your life, limiting you, holding you
back, even hurting you.
How do you move from a place where you have your
thoughts rather than your thoughts having you?
In these words, God shows you the way.
Let’s listen and hear what God has to say.
How do you not let your thoughts capture you? How do you become a person whose has thoughts
instead of someone whose thoughts have you?
In this prayer we just heard, God shows you the way. God tells you. You turn to the one who knows your thoughts
already, so that in God’s light you can see what is real and what is not.
But before you can experience that answer, you need to
face up to the difficult truth of how unaware you can be of your own
thoughts. Do you see what this prayer
assumes? It assumes that a lot of times
you don’t really know what you’re thinking.
Now how can that be?
Well, have you ever seen those Febreze commercials? You know the ones where
people sit in a room or car with all this rotting food or stinky stuff around,
but they don’t notice a thing. Why? Well, of course, it’s because Febreze does
that good a job of covering up the stink.
Your not knowing your thoughts is kinda like that but worse.
Years ago, I traveled with this hippie bus company
called the Green Tortoise. This company
had retrofitted old buses to sleep about 35 people pretty comfortably. And over two weeks, these buses carried you
across the country, stopping at parks and other sites. The company said. “Hey, you may not get a bath, but you’ll swim
almost every day. I had a blast on that
trip, but something pretty intense was developing on that bus. Near the end, I learned what that was. We were visiting some national park. Someone saw our cool bus and asked if he
could look inside. Being pretty proud of
our funky mode of transportation, we said.
“Of course.” But he only stepped
in a few feet, and then made a very quick retreat. We wondered.
What was that about? Then we
realized, our funky mode of transportation, was very, very funky, as in it
stunk. Two weeks of 35 unwashed people
creates a pretty potent, even offensive aroma.
But here’s the point. We did not
smell a thing. We were nose-blind.
And in your head, you have thoughts that stink. But you don’t smell a thing. That’s why the writer of this psalm asks God
to help him see what he can’t see anymore, the offensive stuff, the stuff that
stinks.
Too often in religious circles, people think that what
draws them away from God has to do with what they do. But what disconnects you from God doesn’t
begin with what you do. It ends up there sure.
But it begins with what you think.
So how do you notice the stink, the thoughts that are
messing you up? You notice the emotions
they generate. When you are feeling
anxiety or panic or insecurity or discouragement or despair, behind all those
painful emotions you have thoughts giving them life. And as you follow your emotions, you’ll find
the thoughts. And almost invariably
those thoughts stink. But don’t freak
out when you find a stinking thought. Just
notice it. Step back and witness
it. Give it some understanding, some
compassion. But at the same time, let
it go. Let it pass through you. Don’t let it rent space in your head.
But saying that, only gives you half the picture. The real answer to the thoughts that capture
you is discovering the truth that will free you. It’s what the writer of this psalm means
when he says, “Lead me in the way everlasting.” What is that way?
This morning, we shared with the kids that come to
WaumbaLand, the story where Jesus calms the storm. In the story, Jesus and his
disciples are crossing this big inland lake called the Sea of Galilee. A huge storm starts up. It begins swamping
the boat. But here’s the kicker. While the disciples are busy bailing, Jesus
is sleeping. Eventually, totally
terrified, they scream at him to wake up.
Jesus wakes up, looks at the raging storm, and simply says. “Be quiet!”
And the storm stops. And Jesus
asks, puzzled. Why are you so afraid?
Now you might think.
Duh, Jesus! There was a
storm. But here’s the point. That storm represented the circumstances of
their situation. But it did not
represent the truth of their situation.
The truth of their situation was sleeping peacefully at the back of the
boat.
When fearful, self-destructive thoughts rise up;
thoughts that stink up your life, they don’t come from nowhere. They come from circumstances in your past or
circumstances you’re experiencing right now, often a combination of those
two. But when you know those
circumstances are not the truth of your situation, that truth gives you the
power to let those thoughts go.
And what is that truth that frees you? It’s knowing this: how deeply God loves you,
how profoundly God is for you, how God even became one of you, how God even
died for you to bring you home, to give you life, even life everlasting. And when you know that truth, it shows you
the falseness of every stinking thought.
Those thoughts still come, but they don’t stay. Why?
You know. They’re not the truth of your situation. God’s love, that is the truth of your
situation. And that truth, the more you
know it, really know it, the more it sets you free.
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