Turn the Switch

2/14/2012

Mark: You asked for some perspective. But I think you can even have the right perspective and not have the tool that we were talking about earlier. I think those are two separate things. If you don’t have the perspective, then you can’t have the tool. But even if you have the perspective it’s easy to let your mind just run, and it sends out its little shoots and roots in the middle of the night. You wake up in the morning, and you’re thinking about what happened yesterday when you really ought to be on your knees praying. Your priority is still prayer, but what do you do to stop that flood, the dam that’s wanting to break because of the pressure that’s put on it? Having the right priority’s really not enough. It doesn’t solve the problem, necessarily. All you can do is regret that you “must not have had the right priority” if the time gets away from you. But then you reflect on it, “My priorities are right. I don’t care that much, but I feel responsible. I don’t feel any great passion for it. It’s not my identity. If I lost it in a minute, I could survive that tragedy, because it’s not my value system. So, my priorities are right. Why did it keep invading my space, my time? Why do my priorities not dictate my time and my emotions as much as they should be? Because I know that they’re my priorities. I know they are. Where’s the energy leak coming from?”

That’s what we were kind of talking about over there: the gift and the tool of being able to say, “I know where my priorities are. Now I refuse to let there be any energy leaks. I have commitment to my priorities, but I also have a way to protect those, which are really two separate things. Which was a surprise to me, like I said. It’s really been the last few years that I’ve realized that my priorities can be right, love can be the banner that I’m flying under, and I could still get invaded by all this shrapnel from a thousand things around me. Without giving any heed to it as a priority, it still invades me, unless I learn how to not let it. We were talking about the fact that self-control—control of self—is a fruit of the Spirit. If you say “self-control” you get kind of lost. It just blends into one word, “self-control.” It kind of has to do with not eating too much or giving up sweets. What is self-control? It’s just one word. Well, “control of self” gives you a little different perspective of what that fruit of the Spirit is, which now includes my emotions and stray thoughts, what things create tension in my life or don’t.

“Control of self” as a fruit of the Spirit means that I’ve learned how to build a buffer around myself where I can navigate, I can be effective, I can be creative in this other world that was never my priority. I’m not disconnecting from it in the sense that I’m useless. I’m still a contributor. In fact, I’m an excellent contributor—more than most. But also, when it comes to when I drive home at night, I actually have the ability to turn it off. And I will not, cannot, shall not continue to think about this, because it won’t leak. I’m not going to allow anything to leak into the space. It’s not that I didn’t pray during the day. It’s not like I wasn’t seeking first the Kingdom during the day. I was. But what I’m not going to do is to continue to give away those energy leaks regarding that things I know are not my priorities, never were. I’m not going to give that away any more.

So not having it as a priority is not enough protection. To not care about it as something you would find your identity in is not enough protection. You still have to have enough control of self to learn how to have a thought...and to turn it off. You do it at the magazine rack in the grocery store. You can do it with work! You can do it with any kind of issue at all. You have the capacity in the fruit of the Spirit called “control of self” to turn your eyes, your thoughts, your ears, your emotions. You can turn all that stuff! Your priority would never be anything on a magazine rack at a grocery store. No one would ever claim that to be their priority and also claim to be a follower of Jesus. You know intuitively that you must also turn off every single thought related to that topic as a statement of your priority.

“Control of self” is easy to see in that environment. It’s a little more subtle when it’s a work-related thing. If your job doesn’t have any demands, it’s easy to walk away from it. If it’s a factory job, and you can punch a time clock and walk out, with everybody, immediately their face changes. They check to see if there’s anything left in their lunchbox, they get in their car, and they’re thinking about whatever. If you’re punching a time clock, there are no obligations beyond that moment, because it’s back on the conveyor line. “That’s that. I can’t do it anyway. There’s nothing to think about.” But most of our jobs in what we would call the professional realm aren’t like that. You’ve got an investment that never stops. The conveyor belt is always running in your mind as something you might have forgotten, something else you could do, a phone call you forgot to make, “What’s going to happen if...?” You’ve got good ideas. You’ve got dreads. You’ve got all these things going on. The politics of emotion has no end! It never ceases, so this “control of self” fruit of the Spirit—being the same as it is with the magazine rack—means that you have gained and learned the capacity to say: “I know it’s important. I know another hour of thought would probably solve another problem or at least contribute to solving it, but I refuse. I just refuse. I will trust God that whatever it is, I can pick it back up at some later point.” You might even commit between 9:00 and 9:30 tonight. “OK. I will allow it to go back on for a few minutes. Because there are things that I need to be ready for tomorrow morning at 8 o’clock, I’ll allow it to come back on for a half hour.” But the capacity to be able to turn it off thirty minutes later so that no further leakage takes place, that’s something I only learned five years ago, after all this time, that I actually could do that.

It is a fruit of the Spirit: control of self. I can control my thoughts. I can control my emotions. Just like I can in areas that are obvious to everybody, I can do that with anything now. I didn’t understand that I could—or even necessarily that I should—until just five years ago when it was too high of a price, and I recognized that I couldn’t allow any leakage and still do what I have to do. And then all of a sudden there was no more leakage. I didn’t think that was possible. I thought the around-the-clock pressures and issues had to somehow erode away my other energy and emotions. Then I found out not so. I can turn that off just as easily as I can the magazine rack. That’s been one of the best gifts from God that I’ve received in the last five years, or ten years, even: the ability to know that I can and the ability to actually do it. “OK, I’m moving on now. I’m not disavowing its importance, but now’s not the time. It’s now gone.”