A couple weeks ago I was checking to see if my potatoes were warming up in our toaster oven. When I turned over the potato my hand went up and nicked the heater and burned my right hand so bad that I could smell the burnt flesh (it was gross). Then this past week I was trying to cut a vine off of my grapes and thought I moved my finger out of the way, notice the key word there: thought. Instead of cutting the branch, I cut significantly deep into the skin around my knuckle on my left hand and blood went everywhere. This was right before I went to play “How Great Is Our God” on my new djembe. We had been jamming all night, but this was the first worship song we were about to play. I was so bummed I couldn’t jam, but then, right after the guys messed up, I felt led to play anyways. When I sat down I made the statement that, “Either Jesus is my healer or He isn’t.” Unfortunately it didn’t heal up right away. However, it has significantly healed over the last few days and I didn’t end up having to get stitches.

What in the world do these burns and cuts have to do with anything? From a personal perspective, I’ve gained a significant amount of scars over life; only a few physical ones, but a lot of emotional ones. Whether they are girl problems, ministry related or just being bullied in school, I’ve gained quite of few over my 25 years of existence. But there’s something to be said about getting hurt and moving forward. Maybe I didn’t heal immediately from my cutting accident and then playing my djembe to a worship song, but the Lord sure did speak to me and I still praised Him in the midst of blood going everywhere.

From my own standpoint, I tend to think about the negatives rather than the positives. I’ve spent a lot of time with the Lord during the last few months about this. I’ve been trying to re-route my mindset to think about things from a godly perspective rather than a carnal, and I will go as far as to say, sinful or satanic way. In terms of scars or imperfections on my physical body, relatively speaking, there are only a few and I spend more time worrying about what someone will think about them than I should (Especially when it comes to thinking I’m not good enough physically to date again, yeah major struggle there). The same goes for my emotional scars. I spend more time worrying about if someone still thinks of me negatively because I messed up here or said the wrong thing there or just didn’t do enough in a particular situation. Instead of thinking about the positive things that came out of those specific situations, I’ve allowed myself to violently exclude God from my thought process. It’s as if I have stood guard at my mind with every weapon I can think of saying, “I’m sorry God, but this isn’t for you. You can’t get in.” But for some unknown reason, He just stands there, patiently waiting for me to let Him in. He’s a bit crazy like that.

Either the Holy Spirit is in control of my mind, or He is not. Either I am following Jesus with my thoughts, or I am not. There is no middle ground. There is a lot I wish I could go back and re-do. There is a lot I wish I could change. But I can’t. So what can I do? I have to drop my weapons. I have to humble myself before The Lord and let Him in. So what does this look like? Well I would show you my white board full of stuff, but some of it is pretty personal. So I’ll give you a generic example.

Say you have some friends who were great for a season but there ended up being a bad break up (doesn’t have to be a relationship). It sucks how things ended but you can’t change that and sometimes it may frustrate you. One thing you need to remember is that some people are only in your life for a season. Appreciate your time together, their friendship or even mentorship and be thankful. Praise God for them, pray for them and let the Holy Spirit do the rest. That’s viewing things from a godly perspective. Being angry, bitter or even hostile toward them is most certainly not godly.

If you want some other examples, please feel free to message me. I’m not saying I’ve done this perfectly. I’ve struggled for a long time and still do with trying to get my mind straight. But I’m always available to help others with their spirituality, walk with Jesus and just general questions about faith.

Stop sinning with your mind. I know that sounds a little bit intense, but Jesus constantly reminded us that even our thoughts must come under His authority. Our thoughts are the fuel for our words and actions. So stop the sin at one of the roots: the mind. Allow Him to enter and begin re-routing your thought process. Look at things from God’s perspective, because your perspective is probably perverse, hostile and downright ungodly.

Thanks for reading!

Looking for a cool song about scars? This song may be 10 years old, but it’s still a classic from Kids In The Way, “Scars That Save.”