I Would Spare You Regret

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I know I've written about this sort of thing before, but it's been a few years, and I need the review myself.

I would spare you my regrets.

My greatest regrets have come from the times when I've traded away love, or joy, or obedience, or humility, or hope, or trust.  And what have I usually traded them for?

Control.  The power to make something unpleasant stop, or to make something pleasant start.  

But as hard as it is for us to believe in the midst of painful, scary, or frustrating situations, the fact is that the fruits and gifts of the Spirit are worth infinitely more than control (or the illusion of control).

Love, obedience, joy and all the rest... these were purchased for us at the cost of the unimaginable agonies of Calvary. What will you and I trade those things for? How cheaply will you and I sell them off today... maybe even this hour?

God forbid!

Whenever you are reading this, please stop and pray.  Thank the Lord for His peace, love, hope, joy, and all the rest.  And prayerfully determine, by His grace, that in this hour you will not trade away so cheaply what He purchased with His blood.  Purpose not to attempt this in your own strength (that's impossible), but to be mindful of what's at stake, and to prayerfully cling to Him in whatever the hour may bring.

And then, the next hour, do it again by His grace.

The following suggestion will not apply to everyone. But in my own case I've found it helpful to install an app* on my phone that makes a little noise at the top of every hour. (I have it set not to disturb me during sleeping hours.) I use that little noise as a reminder to thank the Lord for the previous hour, and to confess any sins committed. I acknowledge His lordship over the coming hour, and my responsibility to honor and obey Him in it.  And so, when I fall into bed at the end of the day, I don't find myself struggling to orient my heart to Him, as I would if I'd ignored Him all day in favor of pursuing my own agendas.

And I come to Him without regrets.

I emphatically do NOT recommend such hourly reminders for anyone who would find them unpleasant. No one likes to be nagged. But if such a reminder would be a pleasure and a help to your heart, as it is to mine, then go for it!

But whatever you do, don't trade away priceless gifts for things which will only leave you sorry.

*There are many such apps available.  This happens to be the one I use.

Prayers For Daydreamers (And Other Mental Escapists)

Photo by Vera Kratochvil        

I confess, I'm a daydreamer.

Okay, to be more honest, I'm an extreme daydreamer.  Or perhaps "pathological" would be a more honest word.

Perhaps you don't daydream...but you DO fill up your mind with other people's imaginations in the form of novels, TV shows, and movies.  Or perhaps you feast your mind on endless video games.  Whatever your mental escape may be, it's probably fine in small doses.

The problem with me was, daydreaming became a drug.  It became Escape.  I never had to "be there" mentally, even if I was there physically.

Do you have a problem with mental escapism?  Perhaps, like me, one of the reasons you find it easy to slip into "escape mode" is that it's hard to see what's wrong with it.  If that describes you, and you really don't feel like you're missing out on anything by excessive escaping, you'll definitely want to prayerfully consider the requests I've written below.

Or, perhaps your form(s) of escapism have become an addiction...as I'm ashamed to admit they have with me. Especially my imagination; my skill at weaving compelling dramas in my head.  It's so much a part of me that I hardly feel like it's optional.  The stories are always there, always waiting, always beckoning, always entertaining, always seeming to fulfill a need.

In fact, our mental escapes are far more responsive than God is.  We've got to wait on the Lord, but entertaining screens are never far away.  We never have to wait for our imagination either.  And how do you walk away from a drug that literally resides inside your head?  There's no passing by the fantasy counter, the way people can choose to pass by the cigarette counter.

But after a while, as Christians, we have to come to terms with the fact that we love and trust our oh-so-available escapes more than we love and trust the God we can't control.

Then what do we do?

Scripture tells us that conquering bad habits by mere force of will doesn't make us righteous before God.  That's the Pharisaical approach, and it only trades the original sin for the greater sin of religious pride.

Romans 8 tells us that we must put sinful deeds to death "by the Spirit."

And how does the Spirit work?  He works by drawing us to read the Scriptures, illuminating it to our minds, helping us love and revere God as revealed in His Word (and to love His word for revealing Him to us), recalling the truth to our minds (especially if we memorized it), teaching us to love what God loves and hate what God hates, and changing our hearts to want to obey Him.  In this way, He turns our hearts onto the right paths.

So I decided to attack the problem of excessive daydreaming with some specifically targeted prayers, ones which help me aim for ways to pursue a joy in Christ that's better than mental escapism.  And I thought I'd share them with you, in case I'm not the only one with this problem.  So without further ado, here are:

Prayers for Daydreamers
(and other mental escapists)

1. Father, instead of daydreaming/mentally escaping today, may I love the Lord my God with all my mind.  If love is spelled "T-I-M-E," then my mind is loving its constant escapes more than I love You.  Help my mind to be set on You and seeking you more and more of the time.

2. Instead of daydreaming/mentally escaping, by Your grace may I obey the command to "Love my neighbor as myself."  Because the fact is, I can't recognize my neighbor's needs or prioritize them in my life if I'm wrapped up in my fantasy world. 

3. Help me to "Walk as as child of light, trying to discern what is pleasing to the Lord" (Eph 5:8-10).  I can't be constantly trying to discern what is pleasing to the Lord in my real circumstances if I'm daydreaming about being in different ones.

4.  Help to obey Your command that says, "Whatever you do, work heartily, as for the Lord and not for men."  Forgive me, Lord, that I used to think this meant "Try not to mind the work by distracting myself with my imagination."  After all, what's heartier than my imagination?  But no, it means putting my heart into the work itself in order to lovingly serve others and willingly obey You in the situation You've actually created for me.  It means "redeeming the time," in my real world.

5.  Spirit, please help me to "In everything give thanks."   Daydreaming prevents me from noticing things to be thankful for, or from even committing to noticing them.

6. Help me to remember that I can't "Behold the Lord and be changed into His image, from one degree of glory to another" (2 Co 3:18) if I'm constantly beholding the contents of my imagination instead.

7.  Help me, Spirit, to obey the command: "You shall meditate on God's Word day and night, that you may be careful to do it."  Ignoring Your Word is the same as disdaining Your commands, Your promises, and Your blessings.  It means not caring whether I obey You or not.

8. Help me to "Pray without ceasing."  I clearly can't do that while mentally escaping into fantasy or video games.

9. Help me to receive the blessings of Truth, such as sanctification (John 17:17) and freedom (John 8:32).  All commands, promises, and blessings related to Truth are blocked by an insistence on living with the mind marinating in what is not true. The blessings of Truth can only be applied to my actual reality, even in all its periodic ugliness.

10. Help me to cooperate with You as You prepare my heart to "Go to Him outside the camp, bearing His reproach" (Heb. 13:13)  In our daydreams we feed our lust for glory, we dream of human accolades, we focus on mastery rather than dependence, and we further unfit our hearts for bearing His reproach.

Can you see how different this is from "white-knuckle fighting" with our sin?  By the Spirit we seek to love God more, to find our joy in God instead of in sin.  He alone makes that possible, because we can't change our hearts ourselves.  But we can and must choose to seek Him, to "fight the good fight" against our tendency to believe the promises of sin more than the promises of God.  We can and must pray and wrestle and repent in the fight for the greatest joy there is...the joy of believing and knowing Him.

Strengthened and Protected…by Joy

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I need this one to sink deeply into my heart today.

It has been a day of painful awareness…of stark realities that, frankly, frighten and sadden me.

No, no dreadful medical diagnoses, or other such troubles.  My concerns are of a sort that have troubled many people (if not most) throughout all of history.  The details don't matter.  You have your own troubles to bring to this reading.

Despair and depression beckon.  I know their voices well.  But I don't intend to answer their call.

No, I'm not "toughening up."  I'm not counseling myself to "Keep a stiff upper lip," "Don't Worry, Be Happy," or "Just have faith that everything will be okay."  I don't have time to waste on false "help."

I need real joy.  Not the kind that we humans can pluck on our own heartstrings, but the kind that vibrates in sympathy with Heaven.  The kind that plays forth from a stroke of the Master's hand.

I need joy for protection, and for strength.

When God develops joy in me, He protects me from depression, despair, anger, and surliness. 

I don't need the kind of joy that denies reality.  I don't need the protection of a hiding place.  I need the kind of joy-armor that puts a smile on my lips as I head into a battle called "tomorrow."  I need a joy that can weep with the genuine sorrows of life, but still rejoice in the divine "Nevertheless."

"The joy of the LORD is your strength." (Neh 8:10b)

I can honestly say that I'm not accustomed to praying for joy.  I couldn't have done so until recently.  Tender emotions were for suckers, remember?  So asking for joy would have made me feel downright idiotic.

Oh, I accepted joy when God sent it, and gladly.  And He has sent it; sometimes in the beauty of His creation, sometimes in prayer, sometimes in the glory of a soul-dance called Sign Language.  But somehow whenever joy has passed, I have tended to see its passing as proof that I was a fool to have entertained it at all.

Sucker.  I don't know when or how that word took such deep root in my soul.  It wasn't used in my childhood home.  But I feel the scorn of it even now, knowing that, when I'm through writing this, I'm going to hit my knees and pray for joy.  I think the request will stick in my throat at first, but only for a moment.  God is working change in this middle-aged heart.  I will ask for joy, knowing that it is His will to give it to me.  How could He not want to grow the Fruit of His own Spirit?

I will ask for joy to protect me from depression, from despair, from anger, and from surliness.  I will ask Him to give me joy to keep me from committing all of the sins that attend those heart attitudes, and from all of the regrets that would follow.  I will ask for joy to strengthen me to persevere and even to thrive right here where God has placed me.  I will ask for it to bless everyone around me, especially those who once felt my strength only as anger.  And I will ask for joy to be buttressed by love, and peace, and by all of the other facets of God's spiritual fruit.

And I will not close my heart against joy when He gives it.  Joy is not for suckers.  It is for those who step into His presence (Ps. 16:11).

That's where I want to live.