Thoughts Are A Scary Thing.

Thoughts are a scary thing. You can love with your thoughts; you can hate with your thoughts. You can avenge yourself with your thoughts; you can commit adultery with your thoughts. You can kill someone and you can fall in love with someone else. All this and more can happen in your mind.

Our thoughts can take us to places we can never go to in real life.

But the scarier thing would be if someone invented a gadget that can actually read our thoughts, or creepier still, write our thoughts down for everybody else to read.

Most sins start in the mind, by one tiny thought. Most crimes begin with one thought.

When Jesus died on the cross, He died on a hill called Golgotha, or Skull, because He had to win the battle of the mind. Jesus had to have victory over your thought life.

This morning, as I was reading in the book of Numbers chapter 14, I was stunned by the conversation God was having with Moses.

Moses was tired. He felt unappreciated and rejected. The people of Israel had been continually murmuring against him and now they wanted to stone him. Whatever he did seemed to be wrong.

Have you ever been in a relationship like this? A relationship where you were never appreciated? Never thanked? Never understood? Rejected? Have you been in a situation where someone stole from you or did not treat you fairly?

Where has your thought life taken you as a solution to your situation? What do you do when you seem to be praying for this situation to resolve yet nothing seems to happen?

You pray and pray until you become so numb you cannot pray anymore.

We read in verses 11 and 12, ‘And the Lord said to Moses, “How long will these people treat me with contempt? Will they never believe me, even after all the miraculous signs I have done among them? I will disown them and destroy them with a plague. Then I will make you into a nation greater and mightier than they are!”’

I wonder if God was telling Moses what Moses was thinking but could not verbalize!

Many times when we are hurt, abused, exploited or disappointed we might assume that the best solution for our problem would be the annihilation of the person or persons who are the cause of our plight.

And God comes in this passage in Numbers and verbalizes what Moses was thinking but could never tell to a single soul. There is Someone who can read our thoughts. There is Someone who can verbalize our thoughts and understand them. Whatever our thoughts are, we are loved.

Amazing how God uses excellent counseling techniques ☺. In counseling, we are taught to reiterate to the patient what he/she said. So I would say, ‘Let me tell you what I heard you say….”

Many times when the patient hears his words spoken out by someone else, they would agree or would discuss what they really meant. It is so helpful to listen to your thoughts articulated by someone else.

When Moses heard God’s suggestion to annihilate those that are giving him such a hard time, he realized that this is not the real solution to his problems. Extinction of his enemy was not for him to choose.

The solution lied in the Glory of the Lord appearing in front of everyone to save Moses and Aaron. Moses realized that his thought life did not bring glory to God.

You see vengeance tears apart all parties involved.

Moses’ primary mission was to give God glory.

When faced with his thoughts, he immediately (and I’m sure ashamedly) asked for forgiveness for the very people who wanted to stone him.

God granted Moses his wish and forgave the people of Israel at that point.

My Bible study leader taught me to clean my side of the window; the other side of the window is not my responsibility.

When Moses forgave, he cleaned his side of the glass.

When he left Judgment to the Judge, he let God be God.

Moses returned to the Presence of the Lord and saw God’s glory. You see God’s glory was Moses’ primary mission in life.

Today, I want to urge you: don't let unforgiveness and the need for vengeance consume you. I am not in any way condoning what happened to you.

If you have been exploited or abused I declare you Not Guilty today. What happened was wrong. But don't let what happened to you become your identity. You are not what happened to you. You are the beloved of God, the cherished one.

When you hold on to your anger, to your grudge to your unforgiveness, you are making your abuser control not only your past but also your future. Do you want to give your abuser this satisfaction?

In my next blog, I will give you five steps to let go of your anger and unforgiveness.

If you like this blog, I suggest you share it with your friends.

I also recommend you look up my new book, What Happens After #MeToo available on amazon.

Do write to me if you have any queries.