That door just won't close

Doors.  No, not the popular band of long ago.  Doors as in houses, cars, buildings, garages, offices, stores, etc.  They all have doors.  Those doors open and close, and a good percentage of them can be locked.  Of all the doors you have gone through in your life, have you ever encountered any you couldn't close.....absolutely could not close no matter what you did to try to close it?  Chances are you never ran into the situation like that.  They may be difficult at times, but they are made to close....and given the right effort (or perhaps persuasion!) they will close.

The surprising thing is that actually we all do have a door that just won't close.....no matter what we do to try to close it.  It will not close.  Let me explain.  Everyone has a mind.  Envision your mind as your own personal library room.  A room where there is a huge amount of information stored....old and new.  Our own personal library rooms have just two doors, and each is one way.  One is for new information coming in, the other is for old or new information going out.  Our in door we can (and do sometimes) shut it, preventing anything new from coming in.  However, we can never shut the out door to keep stuff from coming out.....stuff like thoughts.  And there is no librarian there to check out anything coming out, so we just never know what is going to come waltzing out that door that we just can't close.

That is an oversimplified example of our mind.  The gist of it is....we more or less are "in charge" of what gets into our mind in the first place.  After all, stuff isn't born there is it?  It gets there because we open the door for it to get in there.  Our brains are like computers these days.  There is no card catalog in our brains to help keep track of the stuff there.  It just goes right to the main drive, and there it lies.  That all sounds good and dandy.....except !!!.....

 We can't shut, or keep shut, the exit door of the mind, and therefore we will always be surprised by what does and what can come out of our minds.  It's amazing some of the stuff I think of....stuff that I have no business thinking.  I mean, sometimes I'm sure there is an alien in my head because the thoughts are so far out.  It used to bother me.  I would get mad at myself and very down on myself for thinking some of the stuff I thought.  Have you been there and done that?

The bottom line of all the above balderdash is that we are humans of varied degrees of brokenness, and that will not change.  We will make progress, but we will never reach perfection.  Therefore, we will always have thoughts, some of which will be horrible, nasty, violent, you name it,  that we have absolutely no control over....they will just jump right out.  So what to do? 

• recognize them for what they are....bad thoughts from a human mind
• obviously, don't act on them (duh !)
• share them with God in prayer
• know that just because you have those thoughts does no make you a bad person
• don't bother trying to close that door....it just won't close
• understand the source of those thoughts....God would not direct those thoughts
• trust that as you strengthen your walk in Christ, your "thought life" will change
• above all, realize that God loves each of us deeply, brokenness and all !