This week I could have had a number of different answers when people asked “how are you doing?”
Maybe you can relate.
One day I’m doing great. An hour or two later: restless and edgy. The next day aggravated and fed up.
I like how one person put it this week when I asked how they were doing. They said they were “smad.”
That’s valid isn’t it --to be sad and mad at the same time?
The challenge is to not dwell where my emotions and thoughts drag me.
Some of the worst choices of my life have were made when I wasn’t not in a good place mentally because of how I’ve allowed the negative things go round and round in my head like a revolving door and then they shape my attitude on things. To make matters worse, I say what I’m thinking out-loud (or put out enough prickly, non-verbal cues out there) and hurt those around me.
It’s easy to get stuck in a bad spot when I dwell on how awful things are, constantly absorb the barrage of scary narratives in the news, and let all of the garbage from “out there” dwell inside.
As I stay in that mindset, churning up the negative, I’m most aware what’s going on around me and less aware of Who dwells in me.
How do we go from being restless and riled-up to being re-centered? By dwelling on what never changes and endures forever. -1 Peter 1:23-25 and Matt 24:35
Dwelling in God’s word, and on God’s word, helps us push the reset button on our attitude. It provides solutions to the sour attitude that the negative internalizing brings.
For example, in 2 Corinthians 10:3-5, we’re admonished to, “ 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.”
Where we dwell matters. Lord help us dwell in You and in Your word.