Turn Off Dark Thoughts

This blog is designed to give people an inner look at a devotional life. Taking time each day to spend time with the Lord. The hope is if you travel on this journey with Rev. Jacob Shaw, you may be more inclined to spend time with the Lord as well. I encourage the use of a devotional, a scripture reading and prayer, then finally a song, hymn or selection of poetry to tie it all together. 

Today's devotional is taken from: Vujicic, Nick. Limitless Devotions for a Ridiculously Good Life. Colorado Springs, CO: Waterbrook Press, 2013. pp 68-70.

Opening Thought: I greatly appreciate the effort by Nick to approach the conversation on negative thinking because it is challenging for those who are in a habit or disposition towards negative thinking to break those processes. This area of spirituality shares endless boarders with clinical phycology and social therapies. I have often been a big supporter of talk therapy and group therapies and encourage anyone religious or not to contact clinical or social supports along side your spiritual support.

The devotional begins with: 
Ephesians 6:11-12

Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places.

Second Thought Like everyone, I too have dark thoughts, my darkness seems to be routed in frustration more than anything – either frustration with myself or others. What that darkness does to me, is it makes me want to isolate myself. If I’m frustrated with myself, I want to isolate so, what I believe I am feeling as a weakness at the time, is not seen. When I am frustrated with others, I want to isolate myself, so I do not get more frustrated by others and lash out. What my faith does is it reminds me of the value of life and the personhood of others and myself. When I am frustrated with myself, I remember that God offers grace to me, why should I not do the same, as long as I am making good effort to do my best, I can let go of that frustration with a hope for better progress and development in myself or my endeavors. And when I am frustrated with others, I remember that I am called to love others, to the full spectrum of love, that includes the frustrating parts, and although it doesn’t mean I wont be frustrated or disagree with them, or even have to fight against them, it does means I can offer forgiveness, mercy, understanding, pause and discernment towards those that bother me.      

Continual Work: Spirituality and Religion offer a world-view to connect with your mental, emotional, faithful and working selves. The more we believe our life is purposeful and meaningful regardless of the hardships, and maybe even more because of the growth through hardship, the more we are inclined towards thoughts of light than darkness.

What Rev. Jacob is Working On: I believe it is important to face out darkness, that doesn’t mean we give it center stage to do with us as it would want, rather we identify it, and I believe this is were it is important to have someone you can share your darker feelings with, because if you don’t name it, it is much harder to work beyond. I want to connect with my friendships that allowed for this healthy exchange.

Scripture time: Ephesians 6

One of the armor pieces is a “belt of truth” – when darkness hits us, if we pretend like it is not there then we are not being truthful. I think many of us do this, even when we are rallying for something we see as "good", often our motivations behind our rally are inherently selfish in some way. We teach ourselves young to avoid the truth of our darker motivations and thoughts because we do not like to feel bad for them. Apart of our faith-life is looking honestly at ourselves to keep these darker elements in check. I do not think we can ever eliminate them fully from our being, as we are not perfect creatures, but we can give ourselves the tools, or armor to better protect ourselves from it.

Closing Words: As Christians I believe we need to give a dedicated amount of time to looking at our lives and considering how we can become our best selves by using what God has given us. To do this we need the right balance between looking forward and looking back, being liberal and being conservative, be outgoing and being timid, extrovert and introvert. Of course, we all have strengths to one side or the other, but we need to know the proper balance of these things because if we sit too much in one or the other, we a doomed to error.  

Artistic Close: Prayer 

Gracious God, today we put on the armor of truth, we begin by placing on the Belt of Truth - so that we can be believers with integrity and protected from those whose fork tongues wriggle. Let us next place upon us the Breastplate of Righteousness, a barrier between our vitality and what aims to harm us by word or by force, let us feel Your arms, O God, embrace us as armor, holding us steadfast against temptation and fear. Let us next lace up the Shoes of Peace, and know in Your wisdom You will guide our steps, our steps into battle and our steps to retreat, but all the while knowing You are guiding us toward victory - giving us peace and tranquility by use of our feet. Place into our hand a Shield of Faith, a powerful defense for ourselves but also others, and we can invite those around us to take refuge behind our mighty shield. Grace us with a Helmet of Salvation, giving us confidence in our place with Christ, in confidence we will think clearly and offer so much more. In our other hand give us a Sword of the Spirit, may our weapon be the Gospel, a Living Testament to Christ's work for us, and that we may cut through the strife of life and share the glory of the Spirit, which was Graced to us in the time of Pentecost. Now we at dressed and ready for action, with the Amor of God we will stand tall. Amen.