Held Captive

I’ve been extremely restless this week. A bit of loneliness crept in and I felt God was speaking to me about how to move forward. However, I was struggling with where I thought He was leading me. It just didn’t seem to fit with the path that He has carved out for me, so I dug my heels in deep. And the uneasiness just wouldn’t go away. It kept me up at night. I knew God was up to something, but I didn’t have clarity. So I prayed and I waited.

Well, it lasted all week. I was not until today that God revealed what He was after. There are a couple areas of my life that add to my pain and they start with thoughts that roll around in my head. These thoughts then dilute and distract my capacity to discern God’s voice. God wants this stuff cleaned out.

God’s loudest and most powerful voice comes through His Word and that’s exactly how He showed me what He wanted. It was revealed most clearly through 2 Corinthians 10:5 “We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.” That verse is huge. The way for me to truly have a tender and attentive heart is to make sure even my thoughts, not just my words and deeds, are in obedience to Christ. Matthew 22:37 reminds me that God wants all of me – my heart, soul AND mind.

Thoughts are critical to a mature spiritual life. And I have some thoughts that need to be reconditioned – they can be selfish, judgmental and unhealthy. As I chatted with a sweet friend last night, we shared scriptures back and forth and she led me to Romans 8:6 "The mind controlled by the sinful nature is death, but the mind controlled by the Spirit is life and peace."I must keep my mind on the Spirit, so I don’t have to fight through the clutter to get to what God desires for me.

I never want peace to elude me and at these times of struggle, it is certainly not as present as I’d like. So as I worshipped in my car on the way to work this morning, a verse from my devotional came to me and put an exclamation point behind what God was teaching me. Isaiah 26:3 made clear that if I want my peace back in full force I must have a mind that is stayed on Him. “You will keep in perfect peace those whose minds are steadfast, because they trust in you.”

I have been learning in my bible study that a revelation from God is an invitation to adjust my life and join Him in His work, so I must act on what He has taught me today. God is so faithful in making His direction clear to me. And I am so humbled that God loves me enough not to leave me the way I am. He wants me closer to Him. That's His goal.

I can breathe deep and release that tension that gripped me this week as I let go of the hold that was on me. I want to turn my mind completely over to Christ. I want to be held captive by Him. No one else will do.