Flyswatter

I am an anxious person. I always have been. My mom will tell you the profound truth behind that statement - in elementary school, I had something to worry about for every day of the week.

It doesn't take much for me to get myself wound up so tightly that I can't move. Thoughts of things that are happening, have happened, might happen, will happen, or may never happen are enough to paralyze me. I worry about how people see me. I worry about my future. I worry about my family. I worry about my job.

Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own. (Matthew 6:34)

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I know. Mom used to tell me that worrying is like rocking in a rocking chair. It gives you something to do for awhile, but it doesn't get you anywhere. Yeah. I know. All words. Very nice things to think.....until your mind is paralyzed and you can't think of anything at all.

For most of my life, I thought that the worrying was the problem itself, rather than being a symptom of a greater issue. As I've gotten a little bit older, though, the fact has become hard to ignore. I can no longer pretend that I'm just a worrywart and leave it at that. The worrying is bad enough, but the real problem is that my mind does not know how to stop. Any thought that comes to mind has the potential to paralyze me. These thoughts can be, literally, about anything. They come at any time. The one consistent thing about these thoughts is that they do not go without a fight. My mind is a battlefield.

"Your mind and your spirit certainly do work together. Satan, of course, knows this fact, so he attacks your mind, waging war against you on the battlefield of your mind. He wants to overload and overwork your mind by filling it with every kind of wrong thought so it cannot be free and available to the Holy Spirit." (Joyce Meyer)

Few things ring so true with me as the fact that I am under attack. The first time I heard that analogy, I trembled. I knew I struggled with some things, but it had never occurred to me that this fight I had been in for so long was, in fact, a war. This struggle I'd been dealing with was, in reality, a battle. I knew I felt like I was up against something, but I never thought I had an actual enemy. While I may be a worrier and I may create problems for myself that are not really problems, this one was real.

As in many things in life, simple awareness of the problem was revolutionary for me at first and actually helped me to make some headway. Once I knew I was up against a real enemy, I felt stronger to fight it. I wasn't imagining this one. This was real, and I needed to fight.

As you can imagine, though, that only lasted a short while and the situation worsened. I won't try to analyze whether I became complacent and thereby opened myself to greater attack, or whether the attacks actually got more severe, but I do know one thing: the battle was on, and I was losing. Badly. Quickly.

I've been many routes. I've tried many different things to help clear my mind of these violent thoughts - these attacks on my existence. Try as I may, they never let up.

Recently, I was thinking on this struggle and an image came to mind. This image - this illustration - helped to explain why my struggle is so constant and why - despite my greatest efforts - I can never feel victorious.

Imagine a little girl - perhaps 6 years old. She is sitting in her room, playing with her dolls as little girls do. She is immersed in her own little world of tea parties and handsome princes when suddenly, into her room flies her brother. He is 4 years old and brings with him the mayhem that follows little boys. He runs in circles around his sister, zooming a toy airplane around her head and mimicking the roar of a jet engine. She tells him to stop, and he laughs as he makes fun of her little girl's games. She swats at him with her hand and he - encouraged by her irritation - continues. She starts to cry and he believes he has won. She continues swatting......and he continues running and roaring. Her world has been turned on its head and she is powerless to reverse it. Her enemy bothers her for the pure sake of bothering her, and won't quit as long as her defenses are so weak. She is whining, and he is winning.

He is winning, that is, until the little girl wises up and realizes that she has a proven method of defense that she is not afraid to employ. "Mommy! Make him STOP!" Mom comes in, tells him to leave her alone, and she is free to return to her little world.

(I don't have children and it's been a long time since I've been around any such situation. However, this is how I imagine it could be, and it works for the purpose of this illustration, so bear with me.)

In my battle, it is I who am immersed in my little world and vulnerable to a sudden attack from an outside enemy. It is I who find myself, suddenly and without warning, completely disturbed and upset. It is I who, despite the persistence of my torturer, swat and cry and whine.

Given the tactics and motives of my enemy, this defense is anything but successful.

Think about it! The enemy prowls around like a lion! What good is it going to do me if all I do to try to stop him is tell him to "quit it"? Why should he stop if he believes he has me where he wants me?

For though we live in the world, we do not wage war as the world does. The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds. We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ. (2 Corinthians 10:3-5)

Unless I call on someone stronger to fight for me in this battle for - literally - my life, I will not win. I may as well sit on the floor and cry, unwilling and unable to defend myself. This method will not work. It never has, and it never will. It never will. I need someone stronger.

I have a weapon in my arsenal stronger than anything this world or my mind can fathom. I have a weapon that divides soul and spirit, joints and marrow (Hebrews 4:12). I have a Defender that spoke the universe into existence, reverses the decay of death, and promises victory in the end. I have Jesus, and He stands ready to fight on my behalf when I call to Him.

My swatting is useless until my hands lift up to Him.

My cries are useless until they fall on His ears.

My war is not of this world, but - thank the Lord - neither is my weapon. Like the little girl, I only have to remember my Savior is there and believe in His power to save me.