God Thoughts
God Thoughts
January 27, 2023
“To console those who mourn in Zion, to give them beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness; That they may be called trees of righteousness, The planting of the Lord, that He may be glorified.”
(Isaiah 61:3 NKJV)
In September I turned 70, which is a weird thought because age is such a strange thing. If you caught me off guard and asked how old I was, I would say, “thirty-six”, which is obviously incorrect. I tell you this because for at least 75% of those years, I have waked up sad, fearful, and anxious. That’s a terrible thing for a child of God to confess. I’ve read self-help books, done Bible plans, listened to speakers, but nothing has really made an impact until the weekend before Christmas. My son is a guitarist, and his band had a show in Dallas, so we planned to have an early family Christmas, since one grandchild is in California and one in Florida, and one still at home. My nephew and his wife came from Oklahoma, and good friends from my son’s old neighborhood, with their son who’s attending Texas A&M. I got sick and had to miss the show, but when my son and I were driving home, he put on a video by Steve Vai which I think finally turned a light on. It’s in his “Under It All” videos on YouTube, and titled “The Most Important Question”. I highly recommend watching/listening, especially if you struggle with anxiety and fear; it’s amazing.
He starts out by asking, “what’s the most important question you can ask yourself at this moment in time?” I said, “what’s my purpose?” because I’ve been struggling with that for some years. That’s NOT the most important question. The most important question is, “how am I feeling?” I have a friend who asks himself that question, but the times we’ve discussed it I’ve always gotten the sense that he’s asking in a more physical aspect than spiritual, and so it never really connected with me.
Why ask yourself that question? Because although we think we’re for the most part rational, reasoning beings, our feelings, our emotions, are what drive us. If I wake up in the morning feeling sad, I’m sad all day, and that colors every event that happens during that day, good or bad. It prevents me from appreciating the good things, and magnifies the bad things. It also affects every interaction I have with other people, because, as Steve says, “whatever you’re feeling at any moment is what you’re sharing with others, what you’re teaching to others around you. We are all always teaching and always learning.” So I can teach sadness, fear, anger, anxiety, depression, bitterness, insecurity and hate, or I can teach “whatever things are true, whatever things are noble, whatever things are just, whatever things are pure, whatever things are lovely, whatever things are of good report”, as Paul says in Phillipians 4:8.
“How you feel is going to dictate the quality of your life.” (Steve Vai)
So that’s a no-brainer, right? I already know I’ve had a pretty poor quality of life, I’ve just never been able to successfully improve it for the long term. But in the last few months I’ve been running across varying iterations of this: “bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ” (II Cor. 10:5). I’ve read that over the years in lots of places, and my immediate reaction has always been to ignore it, or think, “yeah, right, how’s that going to work?”, however, it’s been my experience that God brings things before me at the point in time when I’m ready to receive them and finally act on them. There was a reference to this verse in a Bible plan about stewarding your thoughts, recognizing the lies of the enemy (what Steve I think would call our ego), and taking them captive, and I suddenly had this image of lassoing one of those thoughts and dragging it it out to the curb with a swift kick. Words are powerful. Jesus said, “out of the heart of men, proceed evil thoughts”, and we say things to ourselves that we would never say to anyone else.
But the thing that really caught my attention the most were his thoughts on reality. I’ve been thinking about it a lot, not only in connection with emotions and feelings, but also in connection with relationships, so I’m going to take what I heard from him, and use it as the starting point for what I’m considering. According to Steve, there’s two realities: True Reality, which I call Absolute Truth, which equals God. God is the only Being who knows everything at all times. “It is simple, reasonable, it just IS and requires only your attention”. (Steve Vai.) I think he means that there’s nothing we can correct, subtract, or add. And then there’s our reality, which is our perception of reality, based on the meaning we’ve given to everything that’s ever happened to us in our lives, and the story we’ve told ourselves about ourselves according to that meaning. NOT True Reality! So everyone’s “reality” or, as our current culture puts it, our “truth” is different. Doesn’t make for a helpful way to begin and maintain any kind of relationship with anyone else, does it? And our perception of reality is what drives our emotions, our feelings, and therefore, the quality of our lives. I think this is what Steve calls our “emotional equilibrium”.
I have friends who have difficult relationships with their children, and I have one with a member of my family, just like almost everyone; friends, family, pretty much everyone around us in these days of virulent social media. Relationships, society itself is crumbling to ashes. If we each see the world through the filter of our individual perception of reality, how do conflicts ever get resolved? My perception of reality, my “(un)truth” says that I am correct, I’m right, what I believe is the Absolute Truth, while you are equally sure that yours is the Absolute Truth. There’s no human who can mediate, because each human has their own “(un)truth”. And so we’ve devolved into the societal chaos we live in today. When I try to resolve a conflict believing in my perception of reality, while you’re believing in yours, it just becomes that same old story - you did this, so I had to do that, and then you said that so I did this, and on and on and on. Nary a resolution in sight.
Jesus says, “Peace I leave with you, My peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.” (John 14:27). Emotional equilibrium results in peace, and if we have it, we can teach it to those around us, while we also learn from others who have it. Emotional equilibrium comes when we understand that none of us has True Reality, we only have our perception of reality, and we can choose, if we want to, to put aside our perception in order to understand someone else’s perception, and in that way, share peace with them.
What would happen, if in any conflict, we made a conscious effort to humble ourselves, instead of trying to prove our perception, our side of the issue? “For you have come into the hand of your friend: Go and humble yourself; plead with your friend.” (Prov. 6:3). “Therefore, whoever humbles himself as this little child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.” (Matt. 18:4). And, “God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble.” So in my case, what would happen if, given the opportunity to try to resolve my conflict, I simply said, “I love you. I am so sorry for not understanding your side of this problem, and for not taking the time to understand it. Please forgive me.” ? I think that would be called giving beauty for ashes.