Battle of the Mind

Jeremiah 17:9 says, “The heart is deceitful and beyond cure. Who can understand it?”  How painfully true this statement often is in my life.  Have you ever known in your head something to be true or logical, but your heart kept telling you different.  It is like when you were a kid and you started singing, “Nobody likes me, everybody hates me, I’m going to eat some worms.”  When something happened that you didn’t like at home or at school.  Your brain was telling you, “look you are liked, your parents like you, your friends like you, even your sister likes you (most of the time), and God, well, He loves you ALL of the time.”  However your heart kept saying, “Nobody likes me.”  Oh or “Nobody understands me.”  When we let our hearts have free reign our minds lose the battle for control.

We spiral down the woe is me slide until we come face to face with depression or something like it.  The world tells us to listen to our hearts, but God says they are SICK.  They can’t make up their minds, they are deceitful…They lie.  Our emotions sometimes lie to us.  They tell us that what feels good is good.  They convince us that we deserve better or we are entitled to something that isn’t in God’s plan for us.  We often put our minds in neutral and give our hearts the reign.  The problem?!  Well, God says our hearts are deceitful.  So when hard times come, if we consult our hearts they often tell us to run when God tells us to stay.  Our hearts may even tell us that God doesn’t care or listen when our minds tell us that God loves us proved it by sending His Son.  Our hearts may twist God’s word to confuse us.

So what do we do with our lying deceitful hearts?  We tell them the truth and cling to it no matter what.  You heart is telling you that you can’t trust God?  Tell it, “God’s lovingkindness is from everlasting to everlasting on those who fear Him.” Ps 103:17  Your heart says this marriage is too hard, I don’t love him/her any more.  Tell it, “Love is patient, love is kind…” 1Cor 13  Your heart says God doesn’t love you!  Tell it, “But God demonstrates His own love for us in this while we were yet sinners Christ died for us.”  Romans 5:8

You see our mind can win the battle over our deceitful hearts, if we fill our minds with God’s word.  What are you filling your mind with?  Is it junk that is wasting your space?  Is it listening to the lies our hearts try to tell us?  Or are you filling your minds with God’s word?  Are you arming yourself with the “sword of the Spirit which is the Word of God?”  Or are you coming to the battlefield without a weapon?  Oh Father, that I would be prepared for the battles within me.  That I would know and LOVE Your word so much that I would feast on it.  That Your word would be the air I breathe in and the words I speak out.  Father, through Your Spirit, and by Your word may I struggle against the lies from my heart so that I may please You in all I do.