One of Those Days?

Have you ever experienced one of those days? You know what I’m talking about right? I’m not necessarily referring to negative events happening in the day, but rather one of those days where you feel like you are trudging uphill in the mud with the wind in your face. Try as you might, you just can’t seem to shake it. You have gone through everything you can think of in your mind. Your sleep was pretty good. You’re not dehydrated. No one thing in particular is weighing your mind down. But, there it is. The blasé feeling is there and you can’t seem to shake it. Have you ever had one of those days?

It seems our feelings are intricately connected to our thoughts. They don’t sort of drop out of the sky on us. Yet feelings, like thoughts, are complicated, impregnated with a million tiny nuances. It’s not always easy to understand what you are feeling. But, suffice it to say, you do know that you aren’t feeling good. Our feelings are there to invite us to discovery. We don’t often pay much attention to our good feelings other than to wish they would continue indefinitely. Yet our bad feelings, our negative feelings, our struggle feelings immediately arrest our attention. Similar to pain, we want it to stop and the sooner the better. Bad feelings (like pain) serve as a signal that something is off. A lack of energy for living is a sign that something is off. Lacking enthusiasm or positive anticipation points toward something that needs to be remedied. Yet, many people have lived that way for so long they think it is normal. “Just how life is – ya know?” But, is it how life is? Should we lower our expectations to match the negative energy? Should we try to get used to the feelings or maybe attempt to medicate ourselves? Numb or faded seems like a good alternative to pain at times. The answer cannot be acceptance or acquiescence. There is a reason we have feelings to begin with. Our feelings act as delicate barometers of our souls, warning us of shifting conditions or else affirming the direction we are traveling in. When your feelings are not cooperating with you something is wrong. Something is off. Something is afoot. Something needs to be reviewed with honesty and compassion for yourself. No one enjoys those days of struggle and you end up opposing yourself by being too hard on yourself or else chastising yourself for feeling the way you do. At a certain point it is what it is, but there is something you can do about it.

When you boil it all down to its most basic level there are negative influences that impact us at times. These influences attempt to work over our minds, most specifically our thoughts. Not feeling good about life or lacking zest can be a function of those same negative influences. Yet, being the curious creatures that we are, once we start feeling a certain way, instead of endeavoring to keep moving forward, we end up turning introspective. We start examining ourselves and searching ourselves for a reason when that reason may be something outside of us. The more we drive inward the worse things seem to get. At this point we are being manipulated. Our feelings that serve to inform us something needs to be changed, now are inviting us to look for trouble where no trouble exists. We cannot readily discern the spiritual and as such rely on our senses and our thoughts to provide us with an answer. How can you be up one day and then down in the dumps on the next day? I think if you really track it down ‘those days’ seem to accompany any positive changes you are seeking to make in your life. Maybe you learned something new and are excited about the positive change it will make in your life as you apply it. Or you finally made a decision you needed to make long ago. Perhaps God worked in your heart to reveal something that has been holding you down and that revelation has the potential to be a real game changer. Enter the opposition. Enter the distraction. Enter the troubled feelings. The author of the negative influence is seeking to bring you back down where you belong, unsatisfied, unhappy, not peaceful, not blessed. We all face this influence at times and living in an imperfect world we have to take it on. But, you don’t take it on with endless thoughts of self. You take it on by continuing to move forward refusing to be reduced to a standstill. Just as quickly as it began it will end. If you have mostly good days but feel besieged by a bad day, one of those days, don’t take it to heart. Just keep moving forward.

Always remember that your mind, more specifically your thoughts, is the battleground for the spiritual competition. The fight takes place between your ears. No amount of evil influence can make you think certain thoughts. Instead they seek to influence your thoughts knowing you will take it from there. It only works and negatively impacts you because of what you choose to think in the midst of it. You have to learn how to change your mind and at times ignore your feelings. Ultimately what you are thinking will end up determining how you feel whether in the immediate or in the longer term. Sometimes you aren’t paying attention to what you are thinking about. Sometimes your thinking is just wrong and the remedy is to change what you are choosing to think. God will not change your mind for you. But, He will clue you into what is going on if you really want to know. Some stuff we think and believe has been holding us in chains of bondage for a very long time. Maybe we experienced a very negative situation which fundamentally changed how we think. Where once we had good thought and freedom, now we experience difficulty and heaviness. It is always the same negative influence behind it. However, at this juncture error has been craftily and carefully built into our thinking processes. These are great edifices of error lodged in our mind designed to keep us bound for a lifetime. This is darkness blinding our minds and dulling our feelings. And the only way to defeat the darkness is by turning on the light. The light, God’s light illuminates our thinking. It reveals that which has been hidden from us. The only way to access this light is from learning God’s Word. God’s Word is alive and full of energy. Sharper than any two-edged sword. It is not just a book among other books. It is actual energy that illuminates and exposes. You will find that time spent in reading or studying God’s Word will result in a recognition and understanding of things that you could not discern before. Then and only then are you in a position to really see what you have been up against and even better how to defeat it. You defeat it by thinking how God says to think and refusing thoughts that contradict it. Our bad feelings come from bad thoughts and our good feelings come from good thoughts. (Sounds like a great name for a blog!) But, no matter how you feel on a given day, keep moving forward. Evil can only get to you when you stop moving.

Life can seem like an incredibly complicated proposition at times. But, it really isn’t. There is no temptation that has taken you that is not common to man. But God will with the temptation make a way for you to escape that you may be able to bear it. You escape by returning to what is true no matter how loud your feelings are screaming to the contrary. None of us goes though life without experiencing difficulty and challenges. None of us are immune to the negative influences no matter how learned we may be. At the end of the day, you are being actively opposed. You are being hindered and held back. Yes, some days you are traipsing through the mud, albeit spiritual mud. Some days the wind is in your face. Some days the road is all uphill. But don’t let that get you down. You aren’t going through anything that all humans haven’t had to face at times. But God will with the temptation make a way for you to escape. Remember He sees all as all things are naked and open to Him with whom we have to do. Yet He isn’t opposing us but rather is ever there to help us, to settle us, to restore us to peace and happiness. Bad days will not last. Troubled times don’t go on forever. We can always win if we will just control our thoughts and at times ignore our feelings. Keep thinking properly, keep at it, do not give up. You will find that your life will overflow with blessings and those “one of those days” will become less and less. God is always the victor over evil and it’s up to us to make His will our will. You can do this. It is infinitely worth it. Infinitely!