Fix the Mind First

The great moments of testing come without warning.  Suddenly they are upon us with the force of a hurricane.  A financial blow...a rejection...a traumatic injury...a crushing loss...despair...depression...failure...It seems impossible this life of faith.  We sigh deeply.  "What do we do now?"  There are some who it appears never have an unhappy moment but that is not me or you.  The Garden of Gethsemane was not a mythological battle of great forces thumping each other in a Shakespearean play.  Jesus Christ prayed in agony on a plot of ground that was known to real people in Jerusalem and other parts of Israel and He did so during the specific hours of a particular Thursday evening and Friday morning when Saul and Mary and Jonah and others we have not met were doing the same sorts of things you and I do at those times.  In that particular Garden Jesus took in the full force of an unraveling world and traveled the same road we have taken.  He agonized.  What He did not do though was lose His mind.  He did not fix His thoughts on what was coming up against Him.  He did not become a dandelion worrying about what to wear or a woodpecker worrying about what to eat.  He did not let His mind become a godless fury of Google searches for answers.  Jesus Christ fixed His mind on the Father and in that shelter, He found rest; even while agonizing over the Sin of the world.  The way to rest as we enter into the great swirl of life at the office, at the meeting with the principal, at the mechanic's shop, in the hospital room and the funeral home is to keep thinking on Jesus with ferocious determination.  Your mind may swell with anguish and despair, your stomach may swim in anxiety but with your thoughts on Jesus now and on Jesus a minute from now and on Jesus thirty seconds later you will have the power of Heaven working in you to give you the rest you need right then.  Worry is your terrible enemy; not the troubles that are before you.

Therefore, holy brothers, who share in the heavenly calling, fix your thoughts on Jesus, the apostle and high priest whom we confess.      Hebrews 3:1 NIV