Positioning Your Mindset
They used to call me Larry the Fairy. Hurtful yes, and for a timid innocent 9 year old, it created in me a festering building anger for which I had no outlet or expression. All it could do was build up inside. Eventually I developed ulcers - yes, at 9 years old I had a stomach ulcer. I could not do anything to change my situation, so I just let it build.
The problem with not facing a problem is that it will always build until it becomes a bigger problem. Either you learn to deal with them as they come up, or you will be forced to deal with them when they have much more power to devastate. Since I couldn’t do anything to stop the kids from teasing me, I simply started feeding a powder keg I didn’t know about… I suppressed it.
I remember one time a classmate from a rather poverty stricken family, came to school shaved bald and wearing his older sister’s dress and older brother’s running shoes. He had done something at home that infuriated his parents and this outfit was part of his punishment. The school kids immediately started the rumour concluding he had wet his bed and his parents didn’t have laundry done for him so they sent him in that outfit. It was deeply sad and invoked a compassion in me that wanted to reach out and hug him.
At recess I watched as he cowered in the corner of a part of the school wall, head down and simply enduring the passing minutes hoping nobody would see him. Everything in me wanted to walk over, put one arm around his shoulders and stand with him. I would certainly have done it too…. except that I feared it would give more fodder for teasing that others would use against me. What would they say if they saw “Larry the Fairy” standing with his arm around another guy? What would they say about “Larry the Fairy” standing with a boy in a dress?
This experience did more to me than the simple teasing. Having learned how to suppress things, I suppressed this need to be sensitive. I stuffed it… I hid it. Part of the way God made me got locked away so that nobody could be affected by something God intended to be a healing balm for others.
These were things that happened to me as a 9 year old. I share them with you now, not to ask you for sympathy, or understanding of my wounds… Jesus healed them long ago. The reason I related these to you is to demonstrate something through another event from that time. I want to show you with a strong emotional anchor, how such a background can affect our interpretation of events so that we set ourselves up for failure.
This chapter is called Positioning Your Mindset. It is meant to be a springboard for you to get the most out of any of the Lord’s lessons for your life. If we are not paying attention, we will miss His valuable lessons… but if we ARE paying attention and have the wrong mindset, we can equally miss the gold in what He is giving us. Misunderstanding something can almost be worse than missing something because we will leave THINKING we understand when we really have no idea that we’re wrong. At least if we walk away knowing we missed something, we can always try to go back and see what we missed.
So that brings me to the story I wanted to share, given the other background you now know about me. While I was in grade 4, my mother used to volunteer to be a lunch monitor so the teachers could have a break for their lunch. Several mothers did the same. But I had a younger sister that would have to accompany my mother since she was not in school yet.
One day during lunch we were eating in our class room before the portion of lunch when we would be sent outside, and my sister came into the class room to visit me. It was not a good day for me and several emotional jabs at my character had already landed. I was on edge. My happy little sister came in to see her older brother and while she was standing at the front corner of my desk watching me eat, Tommy a classmate collided with her and knocked her over.
In my head and heart I honestly saw a classmate intentionally go over and knock her to the ground. It made sense to me, it was the only explanation and THIS time… it was not directed at me, but at my sister.
I snapped.
In an instant I was on my feet. Suddenly I had opportunity to exercise manly justice – not something soft and sensitive, but powerful and exhilarating. Grabbing Tommy squarely by the shoulders I threw him with more force than a 9 year old should normally have. He flew in a gratifying flight path across the aisle and knocked over 3 desks as he landed on the floor. For a brief moment I felt like a hero… valuable, honourable… I felt vindication. I had been a good big brother and stood up for my sister in the face of such terrible injustice and I had executed judgement.
I relished the feeling for all of 3 seconds. I was right, he was wrong, and he saw the vengeance that was buried in my potential.
But then he stood up and got in my face. With the loudest shouting voice I had heard, he yelled in my face declaring for everyone to hear “IT WAS AN ACCIDENT!”
As quickly as the warm feelings of justice had wrapped their delicious arms around me, they fled as well. I had suddenly come to the realization that I had exercised judgement on an innocent bystander who did not deserve such wrath and I learned a lesson. I learned that no matter how convinced of something I am… there’s always the potential that I could be wrong. Now, after living in the fear of being ridiculed for anything that stood out, I had put myself in a position where I was a beacon of wrongness. I started shaking… and I mean violently. I was overcome with shame and this was a moment that would imprint itself in my memory for ages.
Hebrews 4:12 says
“For the word of God is alive and powerful. It is sharper than the sharpest two-edged sword, cutting between soul and spirit, between joint and marrow. It exposes our innermost thoughts and desires.”
This is talking about the effectiveness of the Word of God in revealing the hidden motives of our flesh and particularly when those motives are out of line. We can think we’re right and be completely deceived. God’s Word will expose that.
The thing is though, we have to be in a place where we’re checking ourselves to see if we’re in line or not, otherwise we’ll miss it. This is what this whole chapter is about. First we have to regularly evaluate our heart’s thoughts and motives, compared to the bible, and then we need to make any adjustments needed to bring them around.
That’s just the first half though. The second half of the equation is to then place ourselves in a state where we can receive the fullness of God’s message to us. That may sound as simple as listening for it, but like our deceptive motives… we can be miss-oriented in our thoughts and completely overlook what God is saying to us.
So here is the secret: Do not think from the flesh. Think from the spirit. You can’t see the mysteries of God activated in your life by looking from a fleshly perspective. You have to think in terms of seeing from the spirit first. Then heaven will be released to manifest in your physical realm also. Trying to make it happen in the physical realm will only lead to religious ritual, philosophy, and empty duty. That opens the door to error and deception.
But when we concentrate from the spiritual mindset, we activate the realm where we are joined in Christ; deepening our relationship with Him and swinging wide the gates of our physical lives so that He can begin to show up here too.
This is perhaps the real intent behind the verses
“7 Lift up your heads, O ye gates; and be ye lift up, ye everlasting doors; and the King of glory shall come in. " Psalm 24:7
