When a big event is over, whether it is a big wedding, finally getting your degree, or just a big summer party we begin looking for the next “big thing”! We look forward to the Braves ballgames and pray we can get to the World Series again and then start thinking about the Falcons and hoping they can put a good season together. The next big thing we look forward to are the Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays and when the last of the New Years Eve parties are over and the mess is all cleaned up from our parties, we begin to think about the things we need to get done in this coming year, some call these things resolutions!
Having done that we sit back and depression begins to wind its way into our mind like the kudzu vine, which takes over when it is left untended. If we don’t check the depression and the letdown that happens it starts a process in us that can become what I refer to as a broken mind. It can happen when you let yourself become so stressed over things at hand that you begin to block out the things that hurt too bad to try to resolve.
We should observe 1 Peter 5:7 “Casting all your care on Him for He cares for you.”I have heard of people who had a “broken heart“, I have even heard it said that a person “died of a broken heart“, that must be a terrible sadness. We “give our heart to the Lord“, the “heart of the King is in the hand of the Lord”, it is said that the “heart is desperately wicked who can know it?”Jeremiah 17:9, the Psalmist said, “Try my reigns (heart) and see if there be any wicked way in me” Psalm 139:24, you get a “heart ache”.
How does this relate to the mind?
The heart of a matter is our emotional reaction, the mind, however, is the calculator, the part of us that thinks and decides whether we will or will not serve the Lord, if we will try to do His perfect will. It is said that if you give a person an inch, they will take a mile. Whoever said that must have been referring to Satan himself. 1Peter 5:8 “Be sober, be vigilant, because your adversary the devil walks about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour.”
Hebrews 12:15 “Looking carefully lest anyone fall short of the grace of God; lest any root of bitterness springing up cause trouble, and by this many become defiled.”When we allow bitterness, jealousy, revenge, hate, prejudice, anger of any kind dwell in our mind, as we see in this scripture, not only does it harm us, but hurts, defiles those who associate with us! Proverbs 18:21 “Death and life are in the power of the tongue.”
Proverbs 23:7 “As he thinks in his heart, so is he.”
We know that our heart doesn’t think, so we are talking about the mind. You have to keep your mind fresh, washed in the Word! My dad was 95 years young when he went to heaven and his mind was still as sharp the day he died as it ever was. I believe it is because he sat at his computer for hours studying the Word of God and preparing sermons to give on Wednesday nights at our church.
Ephesians 4:26-27 “Be angry, and do not sin: do not let the sun go down on your wrath, nor give place to the devil” What I see in this scripture is that God knows there will be times of anger and other emotions that are not so good for us, but He is saying, “Don’t dwell in them, don’t let the sun go down before you make things right!” That, to me, means that every night we go to sleep with a clear conscience, having made peace with people around us and by giving all our cares to Him, for He cares for us! So whether you have a broken heart or a broken mind, we know that He is the great physician and can make us brand new!
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