Yesterday afternoon after church our family was eating lunch at a restaurant. I was seated sandwiched in between Tucker and Turner. At one point during the meal Turner began telling me about a nightmare he had the night before. It had scared him so badly that he climbed down from the top bunk and asked Tucker if he could sleep with him in the bed underneath.
In detail he began telling me about the nightmare with tears streaming down his little rosy cheeks. He had dreamed that aliens came to planet earth and began killing everyone and that he and I were the only ones left. It was obvious the dream had been very disturbing. He was reliving it as he told me all about it. It seemed real enough to his five year old little brain. There was no reason for him to dream a nightmare like that. He had not watched any movies to plant such ideas in his mind.
I pulled him up under my left arm , hugged him real tight, and consoled him while wiping away his tears. I reassured him that I loved him and that I would be there to protect him and more importantly God would always be there to protect him.
In his little mind the dream was real. He had experienced it emotionally and seen it vividly in his little mind. No matter how hard I tried to reassure him that his nightmare was not real it was of little comfort to him in the beginning. His fear was clobbering his faith.
That so often happens to us as adults. Maybe we don’t have a nightmare at night but how often do we create nightmare scenarios in our minds and live as though those nightmares are present reality. Our minds have the ability to play funny little tricks on us. Our thoughts can lead us astray.
Have you ever allowed thoughts to take root in your mind about what other people are thinking about you? Maybe they treat you a little differently and you begin reliving conversations and how those conversations might have been interpreted for the other person. You convince yourself that you have done something wrong and that they are offended and mad at you only to find out days later you had fabricated the whole thing in your mind and the people never were mad to begin with.
Our nightmarish thoughts convince us that something unreal is true and then our mind is off to the races like horses running at the Kentucky Derby. The scriptures offer a solution to help when our frightening dreams and thoughts begin to overwhelm us. We are destroying speculations and every lofty thing raised up against the knowledge of God, and we are taking every thought captive to the obedience of Christ. [II Cor 10:5]
There are times when we have to stop and take our thoughts captive and some times we have to destroy unhealthy thoughts that do not come from God. That means that we have to quit dwelling on our nightmares and let our minds camp on the reality of God and the truth of scriptures. God has promised to never leave us or forsake us [Joshua 1:5]. Every day our minds are fertile ground for thoughts and speculations that oppose the knowledge of God and His peace. These thoughts must be lassoed like a wild stallion and corralled under the sovereign rule and reign of God.
The more Turner dwelled on his nightmare the more upset he became until finally after much consolation and lovingly embracing and reassuring him he was comforted. After that he was a totally different kid. Laughing, joking, and talking incessantly. When every thought must be taken captive should you and I need to go sit in the lap of our Heavenly Father and allow His love, reassurance, and protection give us peace once again! Multitudes of thoughts and nightmares whirl around the caverns of our reflections causing us to lose hope and to live in continual fear and anxiety. God would have us bring those thoughts and nightmares to Him and He will reveal the truth of His situation while destroying them and taming them.
I was talking to a little girl and her mother the other day. The mother was telling me that the little girl does not understand why they pray at night thinking that God might be sleeping and therefore not listening. I told the little girl that God never sleeps because He never gets tired. [Is 40:28] That should be reassuring to us. God is always awake, always on guard, and always available. Night or day, rain or shine, come good or bad, He never sleeps, He always stands guard, and He is always available.
One of the things I always pray for my boys as they go to bed at night is for God to watch over their dreams and give them peaceful sleep. I know there is a real enemy who delights in seeing little boys and girls as well as grown adults wake up in raw terror because of some dream they have just had. I have every intention of sleeping peacefully tonight and knowing that boys and wife will also sleep peacefully because I will specifically ask the Lord to take all of our thoughts captive both when we are awake and when we sleep. Nightmares then will turn into grand dreams of triumphs and visions of victories.
If you are continually plagued with depressing or even frightening thoughts, I want to encourage you to concentrate on taking every thought captive. Soon our adversary will have no fertile ground to plant his seeds and our minds will be ripe with the fresh fruit of the knowledge of God.
In detail he began telling me about the nightmare with tears streaming down his little rosy cheeks. He had dreamed that aliens came to planet earth and began killing everyone and that he and I were the only ones left. It was obvious the dream had been very disturbing. He was reliving it as he told me all about it. It seemed real enough to his five year old little brain. There was no reason for him to dream a nightmare like that. He had not watched any movies to plant such ideas in his mind.
I pulled him up under my left arm , hugged him real tight, and consoled him while wiping away his tears. I reassured him that I loved him and that I would be there to protect him and more importantly God would always be there to protect him.
In his little mind the dream was real. He had experienced it emotionally and seen it vividly in his little mind. No matter how hard I tried to reassure him that his nightmare was not real it was of little comfort to him in the beginning. His fear was clobbering his faith.
That so often happens to us as adults. Maybe we don’t have a nightmare at night but how often do we create nightmare scenarios in our minds and live as though those nightmares are present reality. Our minds have the ability to play funny little tricks on us. Our thoughts can lead us astray.
Have you ever allowed thoughts to take root in your mind about what other people are thinking about you? Maybe they treat you a little differently and you begin reliving conversations and how those conversations might have been interpreted for the other person. You convince yourself that you have done something wrong and that they are offended and mad at you only to find out days later you had fabricated the whole thing in your mind and the people never were mad to begin with.
Our nightmarish thoughts convince us that something unreal is true and then our mind is off to the races like horses running at the Kentucky Derby. The scriptures offer a solution to help when our frightening dreams and thoughts begin to overwhelm us. We are destroying speculations and every lofty thing raised up against the knowledge of God, and we are taking every thought captive to the obedience of Christ. [II Cor 10:5]
There are times when we have to stop and take our thoughts captive and some times we have to destroy unhealthy thoughts that do not come from God. That means that we have to quit dwelling on our nightmares and let our minds camp on the reality of God and the truth of scriptures. God has promised to never leave us or forsake us [Joshua 1:5]. Every day our minds are fertile ground for thoughts and speculations that oppose the knowledge of God and His peace. These thoughts must be lassoed like a wild stallion and corralled under the sovereign rule and reign of God.
The more Turner dwelled on his nightmare the more upset he became until finally after much consolation and lovingly embracing and reassuring him he was comforted. After that he was a totally different kid. Laughing, joking, and talking incessantly. When every thought must be taken captive should you and I need to go sit in the lap of our Heavenly Father and allow His love, reassurance, and protection give us peace once again! Multitudes of thoughts and nightmares whirl around the caverns of our reflections causing us to lose hope and to live in continual fear and anxiety. God would have us bring those thoughts and nightmares to Him and He will reveal the truth of His situation while destroying them and taming them.
I was talking to a little girl and her mother the other day. The mother was telling me that the little girl does not understand why they pray at night thinking that God might be sleeping and therefore not listening. I told the little girl that God never sleeps because He never gets tired. [Is 40:28] That should be reassuring to us. God is always awake, always on guard, and always available. Night or day, rain or shine, come good or bad, He never sleeps, He always stands guard, and He is always available.
One of the things I always pray for my boys as they go to bed at night is for God to watch over their dreams and give them peaceful sleep. I know there is a real enemy who delights in seeing little boys and girls as well as grown adults wake up in raw terror because of some dream they have just had. I have every intention of sleeping peacefully tonight and knowing that boys and wife will also sleep peacefully because I will specifically ask the Lord to take all of our thoughts captive both when we are awake and when we sleep. Nightmares then will turn into grand dreams of triumphs and visions of victories.
If you are continually plagued with depressing or even frightening thoughts, I want to encourage you to concentrate on taking every thought captive. Soon our adversary will have no fertile ground to plant his seeds and our minds will be ripe with the fresh fruit of the knowledge of God.
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