What are the stories you tell yourself? What do the “voices” in your head say? Often the stories we tell ourselves, those refrains that are on a continuous loop, reinforce shame and doubt. In some instances, those voices require professional help and intervention.
In our house we joke about the “voice” that says to light fires; that’s an easy voice to quell, to recognize the lie that’s being told. To understand that’s probably a bad idea. It’s much more difficult to stand down the “voices” that cause you to doubt your choices, to condemn your emotions, the “you should voices”.
On Facebook, I follow Daniel Fusco, a pastor at Crossroads Community Church in Vancouver, Washington. Everyday he does a #twominutemessage about a topic. This week, one of the topics was on handling our emotions, including our responses to our “voices”. He quotes a wonderful line from a friend of his: “That’s only big in your head.”
How often have the “voices” in my head caused me to overreact to a situation, a friend, an emotion. I take something pretty small, even insignificant, and put enough negative yeast into it to cause a mental blow-up, and sometimes an external blow-up blindsiding my husband, kids, friends, innocent bystanders – you get the idea.
The Enemy does a magnificent job of inserting doubt, anger, worry, fretting into our mental conversation. We end up assuming ill intentions where none exist, imputing evil motives to others. Our relationships with others and our relationship with God are interrupted and derailed.
When dealing with my “voices”, I need to remember that I am exhorted to take captive every thought and make it obedient to Christ so truth prevails (II Corinthians 10:5), and that there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus (Romans 8:1) so I stop berating and belittling myself.
And on some days, stay away from matches and lighters.
Just Sayin' 