OnFire #290 The Battlefield of the Mind

OnFire Encourage Letter

OnFire #290 The Battlefield of the Mind

This past week we honoured our veterans on Remembrance Day and this year, as in past years, I played Last Post and Reveille at a service. When Remembrance Day falls on Sunday, I normally play in our own church, but this year we arranged to make a video of me playing so I could play live at a seniors complex. It is always an honour to play for those who have put their lives on the line so that others might enjoy freedom.

While those people faced battles of a more literal variety, these past few weeks I have faced a number of battles of the mind. While they were not as momentous as those faced by our veterans, they were, nonetheless, troubling to me.

I had some vacation and was really hoping to spend at least a few days hunting, but a number of appointments and other things kept me in town until Thursday that week. I was so frustrated to be stuck at home. This was going to be the year, finally, when I could take my time and pay attention to the hunt. My thoughts are often so divided that I looked forward to being a little more single-minded. But then there were all these appointments and other things. Grumble, grumble....

On Saturday of that week, Jan was away and Mark and I were getting ready to visit Ian overnight in Fredericton at his college. As I was getting things together, I heard water running in the kitchen and found one of the cupboards flooded. The sewer drain in the bathroom had broken. To find and fix the problem we had to cut out part of a cabinet and make a big hole in the ceiling. We did get to visit Ian that night, but I spent Monday last week cutting and fixing old sewer pipe, and then cleaning and disinfecting everything. What a mess.

These were two of the big frustrations. I won’t go into some of the other ones; these two illustrate some of the kinds of problems we all face from time to time. Often we roll with many of them, but once in a while they mount up.

This is the battlefield of the mind. How will we react? What will we think? How will we treat the people around us? I found it a constant struggle that week to deal with all of the conflicting thoughts and emotions. Early in the week I was angry to be stuck in town. At the same time, I didn’t want to be miserable to live with. “How do I make the most of this, for everyone?” was the question which came to mind. I went back and forth on this all week and constantly had to remind myself. I won’t promise I was perfect, but I have to think I was a lot better than I would have been.

Later in the week I was discouraged over the plumbing issue. How much would this cost? How long would it take to clean up. But then as I was cutting holes in my ceiling to track the leak, it occurred to me that it was a lot better to do this now than in a year’s time. We hope to renovate our kitchen this year. Thank you, Lord, that we found the problem now and not later.

In the end things worked out very well. I caught up on some neglected things around the house. I had a successful hunt. We still got to visit Ian. A man from our church is a plumber and showed me how to do the work on the drain, even bringing a “goodie bag” of assorted parts. I was able to fix it myself for the cost of parts and now we know things are solid for the renovation.

Paul says in 2 Corinthians 10:5, “...we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.”* This is the battlefield of the mind, to put aside our first and strongest selfish reactions to allow God to do something better.

I hope this helps. Be on fire.

Troy

OnFire is a biweekly letter on faith and character written by Troy Dennis. This letter published Nov 14, 2012. Troy is the Pastor of Family Ministries at Highfield Baptist Church, Moncton NB Canada. *Scripture taken from New International Version, 1984. To subscribe or reply, email onfireletter@gmail.com. Archives are located at www.onfireletter.com . Blog located at www.onfireletter.blogspot.com.