So I have this friend, haha yeah right, it’s me. So anyways “my friend” has to constantly battle things in my, haha I mean “his” mind. So anyways, whether it has to do with finances, my family, my addictions, or anything else, I am constantly having to second guess myself and my thoughts. Did I think that? Was that God’s voice telling me that? Or was that Satan for the umpteenth time telling me so-and-so. Case in point, several months ago I came to terms with my addiction to marijuana. It took about 2 weeks to really get to the point where I was ready to quit. During this time I was constantly examining myself and why I did what I did. Why do I continue to smoke weed? Well of course Satan had to put his two cents in on every little thought, but I just had to keep praying and rationalizing these thoughts. God tells us to “Take every thought captive”, and also to “Test the spirits”. So as I pondered all the years of my addiction I had to constantly fight the thoughts of “Well you have done it for so long…”. Yeah that’s true but so what, that’s not the core reason why I continued to smoke. “Well you enjoy it.” Yeah but I enjoy my life and my family more. So after about 2 weeks of constantly having to wonder who said what in my mind, I finally prayed one night, “Lord, please help me to hear only you. I need to truly know why I still smoke even though I have the desire to quit.” Now I’ll tell you, I am a very strong willed individual, that has overcome many things without a whole lot of effort. This just was such a thorn in my side. So after several weeks of constant self-examination, and heavy prayer, God answered me. Once I prayed that prayer to hear only Him and to know truly why I do it, God said…“Because you don’t trust me.“ “Well of course I do, your my Savior.” “No you don’t trust me to handle your problems.” “But I do trust you Lord.” “No you don’t. Everytime something happens, you run to that weed. If you get mad, you smoke. If your depressed, you smoke. Even if you are happy and everything is good, you still smoke. You just don’t trust me to come to when things are going on in your life.” Well that really hit me like a ton of bricks, or as we like to call it around my house ‘The Holy 2×4′. So at that point my only logical course of action was to trust God. I stood up, walked to the edge of my yard, which borders acres of woods, and throw my bowl (a smoking device) into the woods. Now at this point in the story, it was about 10:30 at night so I couldn’t see where my bowl landed, and I then dumped my weed out on the ground and kinda stamped it into the ground so I couldn’t come back the next day and pick it back up. By now I was crying and shouting for the Lord to forgive me for not trusting Him, and asking Him to take the desire from me to smoke. Well my Lord came through, and right then and there He took the desire away. I haven’t smoked again since, and I thank the good Lord everyday for it.
So why did I write all this? Well I guess my point is that we sometimes just have to stop thinking by letting God do the thinking for us. Those two verses, “Take every thought captive” and “Test the spirits” have meant so much to me since those days. Taking every thought captive to me means that I need to analyze who and where these thoughts are coming from. A lot of times I know that the Lord didn’t put thoughts in my head because I know He wouldn’t want such strife and stress for His children. I know He doesn’t give us things for them to be a huge burden on us, but Satan likes to put things in our head that sound logical, and rational but only after careful inspection are they exposed as fakes. Testing the spirits means to me that sometimes I have to test to see where the thoughts come from. And a lot of times I will ask specifics of God. “Ok Lord, if this is you and your desire, than I ask that you let me know through this person, or affirm it through a random song on the radio, something along those lines. When it is God, I know beyond a shadow of a doubt. When it’s not, it’s not.
I hope someone out there reads this and will be able to apply it to their own inner turmoils. I know I wish I had something like this to read years ago, it probably would have saved me (and my family) lots of hard times. Well that’s my blog for tonight, hope you enjoyed it.
Love, Peace, & Chicken Grease! Shane
