What if I had given up?

I have this really weird love/hate thing going on with my mind.

I love my mind. It allows me the capability to be creative, to ponder on things that allow me to express myself and have a different perspective than most. It has gotten me where I am today – I have been able to achieve far more than I ever thought I could (by the grace of God)

But I also hate my mind. It has this amazing capability to latch on to an idea or a thought, and then do what I like to call “stuck on repeat”. It is this amazing feature that allows thoughts to continue to stick in my brain, harassing me through the hours of the day and then until the moment I lay down at night. Sometimes it even makes a guest appearance in my dreams.

The crazy thing about most of these thoughts is they are completely irrational, based on a prior experience or something in my unknown future that could possibly happen. I made a list of all the things I feared the other day – I didn’t know whether to laugh or to cry. While 90 percent of me wanted to run and hide in terror at all of the possibilities, part of me wanted to laugh.

What if I did this? What if I did that? What if I said that? What if this happened which led to that which led to this and then I ended up in absolute isolation, homeless on the street? You see where this is doing.

But, WHAT IF I tricked my mind. What if I changed the direction of my questions?

What if I succeeded today?

What if I focused on all the things I may do right today?

What if I told someone about Jesus today? 

What if I changed the outcome of this situation?

What if I made someone’s day today?

What if I chose to think about all the amazing possibilities that could happen?

What if I decided to live a life completely sold out for Jesus Christ? What then?

Fear will do a crazy thing to us. It imprisons us. It keeps us locked in our own minds, unable to do the very thing that God has called us to do in the first place.

“In their hearts humans plan their course, but the LORD establishes their steps.” Proverbs 16:9

What if I turned off my fears today? What if I turned off the voices of unreasonable threats. That’s the thing about fears, you know. You can’t ever reason with them. No matter what you try to tell them, they only get louder. What if I placed every possible outcome in the hands of Someone greater?

Today at work, our medical director said something interesting. In reference to a record, he made this statement:

“I always look to the old in order to verify what I am being told is real.”

WHOA. Talk about a Word from the Lord. So what do I do when fears accuse? I look to Jesus. I look at the evidence of what He HAS done in my life up to this point and I weigh the accusations that come upon my soul. And I know that God hasn’t brought me this far to keep me locked up in my own fears and imaginations.

“Call upon me in the day of trouble: I will deliver thee, and thou shalt glorify me” Psalm 50:15

Christ holds me together,