Medication for the Mind

“Lest you be wearied and faint in your minds.” (Hebrews 12:3) The word weary in this verse comes from a Greek word which means not only to become tired but becomes sick of the struggle. Mental fatigue is a real problem. It’s happening when a simple task becomes complex and undoable, when the slightest challenge becomes a crisis and when making a decision is all but impossible to do. It’s a sign that your mind is over worked, over active and overwhelmed. When Daniel Boone was in his eighties, an artist was doing a picture of the famous American pioneer and asked him if he had ever been lost. “No,” Boone replied, “I can’t say I was ever lost, but I was bewildered once for three days.” Burdened. Baffled. Bewildered. These three words are symptoms of mental fatigue. In Hebrews 12:3, the Bible calls it being wearied and faint in our minds. It does not require the intelligence of a genius to pin point some common causes of mental fatigue. Nothing wears out the mind quicker and more completely than those times when life seems to be spinning out of control and there is no end in sight. Recalling and reliving past mistakes are like little demons darting around in our minds incessantly and never taking a moments rest or holiday. The demands for survival needs keeps the mind in perpetual motion that hardly slows down to allow you to go to sleep at night. One man recently told me that he had been able to go to bed and actually go to sleep without tossing and tumbling all night trying to figure out he was going to pay his bills after he had lost his job. He was wearied and about to fold up in his mind. A fourth common cause of mental fatigue is the bleak out look in our world in general. Shakespeare said, “Of all base passions, fear is most accursed.” Fear is the abscess of the mind that aches so badly that it pervades both the conscious and unconscious levels of our existence. It tortures, torments and tags along with us where ever we go. I must admit that most of us could use a sedative for the mind. The Bible refers to it as “meditation” In Psalms 1:2, the describes the blessed individual as the person who “delights in the law of the Lord, and on his law he meditates day and night.” Thomas Merton defended the privilege of meditation by declaring, “True contemplation is not a psychological trick but a theological grace.” In Celebration of Discipline, the author, Richard J. Foster insists that Christian meditation is vastly different from some forms of Eastern meditation in which they encourage emptying the mind to a large extent and detaching oneself from this world. The Biblical exhortation on the other hand is to attach oneself to God. Thomas Kempis calls meditation “a familiar friendship with Jesus.” Instead of emptying our minds to the point of nothingness, we fill our minds with the infinitude of God. Someone has proclaimed that “meditation is the skeleton key that unlocks the greatest storeroom in the house of God’s provisions for the Christian.” This is the medication that we must discover for the mind. J. I. Parker described it as: “The activity of calling to mind, and thinking over, and dwelling on, and applying to oneself, the various things that one knows about the works and ways and purposes and promises of God.” Meditation is bringing our thoughts into captivity (II Corinthians 10:5) and managing our minds rather than our minds managing us. Meditation focuses upon the Problem solver instead of the problem. It is riveted to the Savior rather than reflecting on our sins. The mind thinks more about the Healer than one thinks about ones faltering health. We meditate upon the angels of the Lord that camps round about them that fear Him and less and less about gang violence and drive by shooting. I personally believe that there are 3 simple things that we can meditate upon that will alleviate the problems of mental fatigue. First, meditate upon God who is the CREATOR. The first introduction to God is recorded in Genesis 1:1. It declares, “In the beginning God created…” The Maker emerges from the shadows. The Creator unwraps His creation. All things were made by Him. I love the way that H.G. Rolls describes the Creator. “He mantles the forest with trees, furnishes the fields with grain, floods the air with fragrance, fills the garden with flowers, and flings the flaming sunsets across the skies.” He reached into nowhere, pulled something out of nothing and from nothing made everything. Here is the bottom line. If He made it, He is best qualified to fix it and knows how. Meditate on Him. He can fix the mess you are in. He is CREATOR. Secondly, meditate upon our God who is always in CONTROL. God placed Jesus in charge of things down here. He hushed the winds, calmed the waves, stilled storms, expelled demons, healed the sick, fed a multitude, cleansed lepers and raised the dead!! He even kept death in the waiting room until He was ready to die. Hanging on the Cross they robbed the Savior of His personal dignity and exposed him to agony no man had known before, but the cross did not strip Him of His controls. Death was helpless to touch Him until He permitted death to come in. Jesus controlled death in the past and will control death in the resurrection of the righteous that is to come. Revelation1:18 tells us that Jesus holds the keys. He’s in control because He holds the keys. Meditate on the Controller. It is Divine Medication for weary minds. And in the third place, choose to spend time meditation on our Heavenly Father who CAUSES things to happen. Allow me to make a brief comment. II Corinthians 2:14 triumphantly declares, “Thanks be unto God, which always causes us to triumph in Christ…”Nothing is impossible with God. He caused fish to swim and birds to fly to the right places. He caused a rooster to crow and a donkey to speak. He commanded blind eyes to see, and a crippled man to walk. I don’t know what you need from God today, BUT I DO KNOW GOD CAUSES THINGS TO HAPPEN. That’s Heaven’s medication for your weary mind. In The Journey Together, Pastor Jimmy & Bob