Muddled Mind

It’s early in the morning here at the cabin. Everyone is still sleeping as I close myself into my little room with only my faithful dog and my cup of coffee. I try to focus on the task at hand, but so many thoughts are crowding my mind for attention. I pick up the dulcimer and begin to strum. Many times that will quiet my racing mind and help me to focus on the Lord.

“Just a Closer Walk With Thee”
“Just As I Am”
“Sweet Hour of Prayer”

Sometimes the mind clears by now. Not today. I move to “In The Pines” and “Amazing Grace”. Things are beginning to fall into order.

What do you do when things are all jumbled? Even when I try to live right and keep my mind clean, I get assaulted. Strangely it’s not always with ‘worldly’ thoughts. Instead, prayer concerns of family & friends … our own household concerns … thoughts of the coming days … you name it. When I am praying, little thoughts of what I should be “doing” keep trying to distract me; and when I’m “doing”, thoughts of how I should be more focused on my Spiritual growth and outreach hound me. Please tell me that I’m not alone in this. I guess the distractions are the worst when I am trying to write. A simple post may take only a few hours and some take days. I can’t count the number that were started and ended up in the computer trashcan.

I have found that sorting through the muddled mess in my mind can be awful time consuming. Personally, I think that’s where satan hits us the hardest – in the mind. If he can keep us preoccupied and focused on self, we can’t be effective for God. I have to choose each day not to allow myself to get caught up in the ‘self’-awareness bog. I take everything to God. I pray for the family & friends who are concerning me instead of holding onto their problems as my own. I have to give them to God or the weight of their issues would smother me. I give our own family concerns to Him as well. If I can’t “fix” it … He can.

Often a long walk with Bandit gives me time to pray and sort out my priorities. Time is so short.

What is the most important thing? Serving God.

How can I best do that today? Get close to Him and reach out to others.

What is stopping me from doing this? I list these issues to God one by one and give them to Him to deal with.

Now, what can I do today/right now to best serve God? My priorities start to line up.

I would like to say that I am such a mighty Christian that I am on track 24/7. But that would be lying. I struggle with ‘self’ every day of the week. I have to choose God’s Will every day. With all the distractions in this world & in my own mind … that’s tough. I figure that when satan’s minions are smacking us the hardest, it must mean that we are getting closer to winning a victory for the Lord. That gets the adrenaline pumping. It gives me a deep-down determination to push harder. I can’t let ‘stuff’ distract me … we are too close.

Whenever we come to mind … a fleeting thought … whisper a little prayer for us. God has given us a work to do, and the devil is throwing everything in the book at us right now. That encourages me. We must be on the right track. There’s a victory right around the corner if we can just stay focused and not surrender to distractions.

Right now, I hear footsteps upstairs so that means it’s time to move on to the ‘doing’ part of the day. Before I close, I want to thank everyone who have been praying for and encouraging us. You will never truly know how much you help us stay on track. I pray for you as well. Soon, very soon, we will be praising God together in His presence! Until then …

Have a great day & may the Lord bless you.