Have you ever experienced racing thoughts?

These are thoughts that come across your mind abruptly and leave your mind as quickly as they arrive. Often times these thoughts interrupt other thoughts leaving you spurting out incomplete sentences or sharing incomplete ideas losing track of what you were talking about in the first place. If you experienced an infiltration of many thoughts all flooding your mind at the same time causing you to not be able to turn off your mind and rest you have been visited by racing thoughts. Racing thoughts can arise for many different reasons: taking on too much, anxiety, being overwhelmed, or a toxic thought life. These racing thoughts often leave us anxious, paralyzed, struggling with insomnia, depression, and many other disorders and unhealthy habits. This should not surprise us, but should raise a red flag. Notice I said red flag, a warning, not a white flag of surrender. 

I have a confession to make. I am a slow learner. 

School for so many years was very difficult for me. Most of the time I did not comprehend what was being taught but I was able to copy methods, follow steps, and arrive at the right answer. Why those steps? Why was the answer right? I had not a clue. I was never really ever able to answer why.  

When I first became a Christian I quickly realized I needed to learn a new language, Christianese. Every time I was around seasoned believers they would use terms I just did not understand or recognize. You can also see this happen in any industry. Everyone who is well acquainted with the topic will speak in acronyms or jargon specific to this industry without realizing what they are saying only makes sense to those who are well versed as well to the topic. In turn, their words sort of fall on deaf ears when the person is new and trying to learn. Most of what they share is missed because it is simply too much for the new person to grasp. Well, this was brought to my remembrance and there is one "Christian" concept in the word I think is critical to our walks and is worthy of a pause to explain and experience. It is the concept of letting God wash you with the water of His word. 

I am not much of a shopper, but one thing I did learn young was to judge a mall by its anchor stores. The quality of the anchor stores would give me insight to the quality of goods being sold and the type of experience I would have as a shopper. If I was on a hunt for a bargain, I would not go to malls which anchored themselves with Macy’s and Nieman Marcus, high-end retail stores. Since I am not a sailor that is about as much experience I have with anchors, but like anchors of a boat, which hold a boat in place to meet the sailors needs, these stores kept the mall in place to meet the shoppers needs. This concept of being “anchored”, settled, and unmoving in our faith can be found all throughout scripture, such as in the book of Hebrews.   

Ever realize in the middle of a conversation with someone your mind begins to wander? You begin to engage with the wandering thought to the point you no longer are listening to the person speaking to you, the show you are watching, or what is playing on the radio. You may be looking in their direction and even in their presence, but you have completely left the conversation. Then suddenly you notice and you zoom right back into the conversation and you try your best to gather the context in order to be able to respond. Well, let me tell you this happens to me often. Especially, when I have so much happening, I notice my mind begins to wander. As I am sitting in meetings or talking to my family, and they say just one word and then there my mind goes. Oh, our Lord knows how well He fashioned us so He purposely and intentionally speaks of our minds over 100 times in the bible!