“How long must I wrestle with my thoughts and every day have sorrow in my heart?” Psalm 13:2
The word “wrestle” is interesting. I have a son who wrestles (and not that WWF stuff either, the honest to goodness sport of wrestling). I learnt a lot about wrestling from sitting in the stands last year watching him win match after match.
When you wrestle someone, you are not paired with someone larger or smaller than yourself, you are evenly matched weight-wise. In order to defeat your opponent you have to tackle him, you can’t stand in your corner and win the match, you have to get out and wrestle. Lastly, you have to strategize, this happens before and during the match.
When my son was in training, the coach would go over ways to defeat their opponent. He also taught the boys how to expend their energy wisely, so they would have a good result — in other words, getting their opponent pinned on the mat.
Most important, you have to listen to your coach who watches your opponent carefully and tells you how to best attack him. During the match itself, the coach would stand off to the side, and when my son would reach an impasse, he would look over to him, and he would give instructions.
In our spiritual lives we have to come against the thoughts that are not from God, that are our enemy. Don’t be deceived, those thoughts are “weighty”, the doubts planted in your mind, the lies spread by the enemy are no lightweights. So, how do you overcome them?
You have to tackle those thoughts. Just shrugging and saying, “I can’t change the way I think” is exactly what the enemy wants. It will take you tackling those thoughts and saying, “I will not allow them room; they will not conquer me.”
Realise those thoughts do have “weight” in your life. Shrugging them off as “no big deal” and minimizing them is as dangerous as allowing them to loom large in your life. They will pin you down either way; you have to acknowledge they are there, but that you can overcome them with:
The guidance of your coach – God. God never leaves us. When you are in the midst of the wrestling match, take time to listen to Him. He has the guidance necessary for you to conquer your opponent, He has the strategies laid out in His Word on how to overcome those thoughts.
The next time you face the thoughts that seem to overwhelm you, remember, when you wrestle them, you don’t wrestle alone, you have God on your side!
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