Controlling the Actors

I have heard before that the mind is like a stage where only one actor can be on at one time. I have always thought that I whenever I had a fear or a temptation or a bad thought enter my stage that I immediately had to push it out and replace it with a good one. I always had to have a quiver of arrows of good thoughts at the ready to slay the devils in my mind as they came in and out of the spotlight. However being defensive is never your best offense.

Maybe the best way I can defeat my own demons is to simply slow down. Immobilize the thoughts and question them. Freeze them. Clear my stage and wait a minute or two. Collect myself and my thoughts and then instead of moving something weak into the fray to react to the disruption, I instead can move something strong into my mind instead. To be perfectly honest, I have doubts about myself and most of them come from within. I am still trying to prove them wrong but while I struggle in building more faith in myself, I can rely on the faith of others. I can rely on the faith of my family, my friends, and my God. I can do all things He asks of me and I am worth something to them.

He died for me. I wasn't just worth something but I was worth someone. God loved me enough that His Son gave up His own life for me. And He did so willingly because He has faith in the kind of man I will become. He trusts me and not only should that be enough but what that means is that I am enough. I can do this. He knows it and I have always been able to do it. I just need to focus on what is and not what can or could be. Fear is accepting that the only choice we have is to fail. However our history as well as our future was already written. If we choose to accept Christ as our Savior and Redeemer and we let that choice guide all things in our lives, we have already succeeded. It is only through Him and by Him that we are able to and have already overcome all things.

If we are to write our own story then it should be simple: I choose Him. And I will continue to choose Him again and again and again. And because of that choice, all other choices will lead to eternal life in an eternal family surrounded and maintained by the love of God. This life is but an instant in the grand scheme of eternities. I have to willing to commit my life to Him as He did for me.