MIND SPLINTS

“Though the fig tree should not blossom,  nor fruit be on the vines, the produce of the olive fail and the fields yield no food, the flock be cut off from the fold and there be no herd in the stalls, yet I will rejoice in the Lord; I will take joy in the God of my salvation.  God, the Lord, is my strength; He makes my feet like the deer's;  He makes me tread on my high places. [..] ”   Habakkuk 3:17-19

I was sitting in my car early in the morning, waiting for a friend when this verse drifted into my mind. Let me tell you, it was a like a lifeline being thrown to me. I had been struggling pretty much since my eyes opened that day with giving Him control over the future and His plan for my life. He’s stripped away a lot of black, tarry ‘yuck’ (pride) lately, but there are always abundant layers of it to scoop out.  I looked Habakkuk 3 up in my little Bible and the words hits me in a fresh way.

Read Habakkuk 3:17-19 again slowly and think about what the author is saying about his life. These are the words of a broken, surrendered man. They might read: “Though my life may look like a total failure, though other people’s expectations of me aren’t met, though my dreams for myself may look different than I imagined, though the amount of suffering was more than I anticipated, though the wait is longer than I thought, though there’s not a cent in the bank account, though I may not even know where my next meal is coming from, though I have nothing but Jesus Christ to my name!...”   I think I uttered “Oh my word..” out loud as I sat there and took that in.

Have you ever felt like your life or performance doesn’t measure up to your expectations or the expectations of others? I think most of us wrestle in that place pretty frequently in at least some small way. Sometimes the Lord has us wrestling more acutely and deeply with those feelings for an indeterminate season. Habakkuk’s words in the next breath shocks me. After that honest confession of what his life has “produced” (by the world’s standards), he utters a deliberate, startling declaration. “YET I will rejoice in the Lord; I will take joy in the God of my salvation.” 

Some translations use the word “exult” instead of “rejoice”. Exult means to literally “leap in the air for joy”.  He threw his whole mind, will, and body into praising God in his trial. It’s this kind of conscious decision to trust God and focus on His goodness that fills our heart-tank with strength to keep waiting, praying, and obeying. The Lord revealed to me the other day that much of my weariness in the wait has a lot to do with my thought patterns. I need wrist splints for my thought life. “Wrist splints?”, you ask. Well let me explain.

 Thanks to the aging process, my flawed human DNA, and heavy daily computer use, I now wear to bed amazingly cool, superhero-like wrist splints (Cool? Well, not so much…and there’s no "carpal-tunnel girl" in the superhero galaxy). About four months ago, I noticed that if I would work on my computer for 4-5 hours straight, I would get wrist pain that would steadily increase. This would progress until I would have trouble typing an email. I was making the median nerve in both of my wrists pretty unhappy with my repetitive movements. Resting and a new keyboard helped, but the tenderness wouldn't go away completely. I was baffled that I even began to wake up in the morning with pain after eight hours or “resting” my wrists. Being the good nurse that I am, I ignored it as long as possible and didn't look into the problem too deeply. "I can fix me!", she cried. My pride got worn down as I continued to lose function and not get better despite my efforts and my own "treatment plan". Finally recognizing I couldn't fix this, I researched some more found out to my surprise that most of the damage was being done while I was asleep. I learned that those in orthopedics recommend reducing the inflammation by sleeping with special wrist splints. Why?   It turns out that when I go to sleep and go on “auto-pilot”, I’m flexing my wrists all that time, doing damage and weakening that area. My wrists had to be locked into a certain posture in order to get well. Slightly dubious and feeling a little silly, I put my splints on for the first time and went to bed. I woke up absolutely pain free and feeling stronger in my wrists than I have for months. That strength in my wrists even lasted during my computer work for most of the day! I was (am!) praising God and sorry I hadn’t used these blessed little things four months ago.

How does that speak to me about my thought life? Well the Lord showed me that the more my mind is “splinted” against wandering into focusing on agendas, time lines, and “how is this going to work??”, the less wearied and weakened my heart is in the wait. The Lord spoke to me recently one morning and said very clearly about my thoughts: “Content drives motivation. Where you focus is what you’re feeding on.” I’ve been feeding myself a steady diet of impatient, fearful, agenda-conscious thoughts about my future. Even little “snacks” along that line (just a thought here or there!) have been sapping my strength. I need to feed on the truth of His Word and who He is. The Lord told me that there can be no auto-pilot in my thinking in this season if I’m going to endure. Hebrews 10:36 says “For you have need of endurance, so that when you have done the will of God you may receive what is promised.” 

He allowed a little margin in my thought life before (and protected me for the most part in my ignorant sin), but there’s no margin now. I’m accountable to Him for what I now know.

  “If you say, ‘But we knew nothing about this,’ does not He who weighs the heart perceive it? Does not He who guards your life know it? Will He not repay each person according to what he has done?”  Proverbs 24:12

Back to Habakkuk 3:19. “… He makes my feet like the deer's;  He makes me tread on my high places. [..] ” He is the God of my salvation (vs18) , and out of that great salvation is power to obey Him. This power to obey does NOT flow out of me trying harder but out of letting Him take over.  My free will (my "want to") and His Holy Spirit (His "how to") meet up when I surrender control over to Him. It's not us trying harder with "God on our side", it's living the absolutely "exchanged life" that Galatians 2:20 promises. I agree with what He shows me and say "You're right, I can't handle this and it's sin for me to try to do it on my own." And as I cry out "God help!" in my thought life (or whatever He points out) and turn it over to Him, He will make me leap over rocks that are impossible for me on my own. For me these big boulders are my unbelief ("How in the world is God going to bring me back to Uganda? This wait feels so long, is He still on the job?") and pride ("I don't like the way this looks! It doesn't feel neat and tidy.This isn't the training program I thought I signed up for, Lord!"). So now that you know how to pray for me, what is it for you? What is He asking you to give over to Him?  If we do, He will faithfully cover rocky, high territory that makes our knees shake. He will cut off things we were never meant to carry. He will glorify Himself all along the way.


Lord Jesus, help us to rejoice (leap up in the air!) over the fact that you picked us out and saved us. Your salvation for us on the cross is more than enough to make us have a heart filled with holy joy.  Please help us to fix our minds on YOU and receive what we need to endure. My mind is so undisciplined and distracted every day and I’m asking You to help me to not take a single thought lightly. You have shown me that stray thoughts are not innocent and I’m not “spiritual enough” to handle even a few lies nesting in my mind. Teach us to take every thought captive to You and make them obedient to You (2 Corinthians 10:5). As we do that, You’ll give us the daily victory we long for.  Don’t let us think this is another thing to add to our legalistic list of things to do! We can’t DO anything apart from you (John 15:5). It’s only through a personal relationship with You that this is possible. Once we know You as our Savior and Lord, it’s only through gazing at You and Your finished work on that cross that we have freedom from our sin. Thank You, Jesus! Amen.