Which Way

“Confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working.” James 5:16 ESV

 

I have been replaying two specific things in my mind lately.   The more I thought about the one item, the more anxious I became to the point of despair. The other item kept popping up in my mind, and I quickly tried to squash it thinking, “It’s not my problem.” I talked to God about these things and I would feel relatively better but neither would go away. I finally brought up the first item to my spouse. As I talked, I could feel the anxiety leave my body. In the open, my thoughts appeared crazy and out of line with who I was as God’s child. After speaking my thoughts, I was able to completely release the foolishness I had been holding onto.   The peace of God settled deeply into my soul.

 

When I finally brought up the second item to my spouse, I thought the same thing would occur. I was wrong. Turned out the more I spoke, the clearer it became that this item was from God and He was telling me to do something about it. Instead of letting go, I was given direction on how to proceed with the item. I received the peace of God as well, but only when I planned out my course of action.

 

Sometimes our thoughts are lies whispered to us from the enemy and other times God is prompting us to take action. How can we tell the difference? For me personally, I wanted everything to be taken care of between God and myself. I never wanted to include another soul into my crazy head. What I learned from my recent experience is that my crazy head doesn’t always do a good job discerning when it is God prompting and when I am obsessing about something He wants me to let go of. The clarity came when I let it out of my head and allowed another believer to hear what was going on. Discernment came in the discussion with the other person, not on my own with God. The Bible confirms what I went through; James tells us to confess to one another. Elsewhere we are told to stay in community with other believers. God knows that we need to talk things out so we can see Him more clearly. Don’t let the enemy convince you that your thoughts are too weird or random to talk to another human being. Follow God’s lead and talk about your issues with someone. And then allow the peace of God to settle deep into your soul.

 

“But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin.” 1John 1:7