Wrong Thought Pattern #6--This Should Be Over By Now

It's a yucky day for the lab rat.

Yesterday was great. I felt good, had energy, got all kinds of things done around the house. I had tried doing my two doses of medication closer together to have the full effect during the daytime hours (like I said, I'm the only volunteer to experiment with, so I have to try everything myself--this is a very rare medication so there's not much information on it even on the internet).

For lack of a more elegant way of saying it, last night was miserable. I woke up over and over again in between very stress-filled dreams, and my blood sugar crashed around 2:30 so I had to get up and eat.

 

Obviously yesterday's medication schedule was not a good idea. Today I'll try something different.

Ironically, even when I'm trying new things, or dealing with the old things, whenever it all goes bad like this, I feel this sense of failure and guilt. I should be doing well. I should have a handle on this whole thing. I should have worked hard enough or figured out enough to be stable, or at least avoid miserable days like today's going to be.

Do you ever find yourself that way spiritually? I do. You think you have dealt with a certain weakness or temptation, then out of the blue you find it's on top of you again. You don't want to spend today struggling with that same old thing. This should be over by now. You're an adult. You should have gotten a handle on this thing to the point that it's not hard to deal with anymore.

That's a wrong thought pattern Satan uses to keep us discouraged and keep us so frustrated about the fact of the problem that we don't actually conquer the problem.

I'm writing about this today because I know my tendency right now is to think this day is a failure before it's even begun, and spend all day feeling guilty and angry with myself for letting it happen.

Looking at it from your perspective, you're probably thinking something like, Don't let this get you down. You have a health condition. Of course some days you're going to have setbacks. Accept that, and plan to rest today and get your strength back, then move on. It isn't a failure. You can't expect yourself to have it all figured out already.

Well, let's apply this to our wrong thought pattern spiritually. Don't stop in your spiritual walk forward to wallow in whatever you find yourself struggling with. Even if it is the same old thing, the truth is that you are a sinner, and until heaven your flesh is always going to be something to battle against. You can't expect yourself to have it all dealt with to the point that sin will never come knocking at your door again. You are human, so rather than sitting around feeling guilty or angry about it, deal with the sin or temptation immediately (asking forgiveness and putting it in God's hands rather than carrying it around and focusing on it, making it even more powerful in your life). To struggle is not a failure. To decide you're a failure and just give in is.

It goes back to those sins which so easily beset us (Hebrews 12:1). Your biggest weakness may be totally different than someone else's, but believe me, they have some too. Each personality type in existence, no matter how impressive their strengths are, have weaknesses that come along with those strengths. In fact, I once heard a preacher say, "An unguarded strength is a double weakness." It's not when we know our weakness and expect to face it regularly that we fall; it's when we've decided we've got it conquered and don't need to be wary of it anymore that we treading dangerous ground.

Like me with my health. If I just decided things were fine and I am stable, I would stop paying attention to the signals my body gives throughout the day telling me to be careful in certain areas. I would do things harmful to my body simply by not paying attention.

Same thing spiritually. God's Holy Spirit within us wants to rule in our hearts throughout the day (Colossians 3:15), but if we think we've got it under control, we will stop paying attention, setting ourselves up for harm.

Today, let's all rest in the Lord and let Him give us our spiritual (and physical) strength back. Let's expect to experience setbacks in this journey and not despair when we encounter them. Learn from them, give them to the Lord, and move on.

This lab rat is signing off for now to go rest awhile.

P.S. Yesterday evening I noticed my face was flaming, as if I was really embarrassed. Only it didn't go away. It lasted for hours, and my skin was warm to the touch. Strange. I'm actually feeling it again right now. So I looked up that side effect and found it under the "shouldn't need medical attention, but contact your doctor if it remains or is bothersome." There's a spiritual parallel in that. If you're feeling a spiritual "symptom" and you don't know what it means, go to the Book and find out! Then do whatever it says on how to deal with it.