DONT PANIC- JUST FOCUS ON TRUTH!

Kathy, a school volunteer hurried inside the school’s walk in freezer to retrieve several bags of ice for their school’s annual field day event. She knew the children were hot and thirsty and were waiting for her return with the ice for their drinks. There was no one in the school cafeteria to get the ice for her, so she proceeded into the large walk in freezer herself. She picked up the ice and turned toward the massive steal door when she suddenly realized there was no handle on the inside, only a steal square plate in the place of where the handle should be. Her heart began to race as she quickly moved to the point of full blown panic. As she realized that no one knew where she had gone, she began to scream at the top of her voice when suddenly, the door opened and there stood the custodian. He gently smiled and said, “it’s a swinging door ma’am, just push”.

You can imagine her fear of not knowing the facts and her imagination getting carried away with her leading her to fear a situation that was not even real. While God designed our bodies with defense mechanisms that get fired up when our brain knows that we may be in danger, they can sometimes if we allow it, to malfunction and the result can be an over exaggeration of the situation before we have all the facts.  Panic attacks like Kathy had are nothing more than episodes of intense fear or apprehension that are triggered by a situation that was not thought through, which allowed her body to imagine the worst. Her mind was preparing for a false fight, forcing her body to take over to help face the situation or to run from what her mind perceived her danger to be, real or not. While I am in no way an expert, nor am I trying to inject any kind of would be medical or professional help in the matter of fear and panic, I am however, someone just like you, that has experienced  the pangs of fear and panic it in my own life and through the Word of God is learning to apply I Corinthians 9:23-27 that helps me to gain control over my feelings and emotions. It says, “ I do all this for the sake of the gospel, that I may share in its blessings. Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one gets the prize? Run in such a way as to get the prize. Everyone who competes in the games goes into strict training. They do it to get a crown that will not last, but we do it to get a crown that will last forever. Therefore I do not run like someone running aimlessly; I do not fight like a boxer beating the air. No, I beat my body and make it my slave so that after I have preached to others, I myself will not be disqualified for the prize”.

I am learning that I can get control over my body by making it mind me and do what I want it to do, instead of allowing it to randomly go off on its own, parked on STINKING THINKING. As we learn to work with it rather than against it we can learn to move quickly through our fear and worries getting to the other side of them. Under the right circumstances, anyone of us could likely find ourselves in a situation like Kathy. Maybe not is a walk in freezer, but in a situation where our mind is racing with thoughts of worry and fears that may not be life threating at all but can absorb much or our energy and time dwelling on fiction rather than facts.

Patronizing someone that is going through this as well, will just put them on a higher alert making them angry and feeling stupid for feeling the way that they do. Telling someone not to worry in their moment of “Stinking Thinking” might only force them to panic more. Instead, the best thing that we can do or say to them is to realize that we ourselves have more than likely been in that situation and may need to say something more like, "I understand that you're upset and I am here to help you walk through your situation while praying that God will help you to see and focus on Truth and not the moment." Saying things like "there's nothing to worry about," or "it's all in your mind," or "you're overreacting" will exacerbate the problem. Their fear or worry is very real to them at that moment, and the best you can do is help lead them to the Lord and allow Him to show them what they need to see, minimizing or dismissing their fear or worries in any way can make their situation worse. As a child of God, one of the many wonderful things that I have and am learning in my walk with Him is that; I never have to worry about knowing what is and is not truth. Because if I really want to know in humility, the Holy Spirit of God will reveal it to me or either God has another plan that involves me not knowing at the time and even in that, I have peace trusting in His reasons. You see the closer we walk with God the less we find that we have to know, in order to believe and trust in the plans that He has for our lives. When we are overcome by our thoughts getting away with us, we simply need to learn how to beat our bodies/minds bringing them into our submission and control. It is when we lose control that we head off into the realm of “Stinking Thinking” and the only thing that “Stinking Thinking” does for us is put off an offensive odor to others revealing the old dead carcass that we are lugging around with us and have not yet buried.

Loving on you today,

Bren