The temptation can come from the inside — and frequently does. It is our own emotions that tempt us most of the time. Our toughest battle is often against our unwanted emotions. For example: When we plan something wonderful, sometimes our plans fail. Murphy’s Law looms and destroys our dream – so we think. When this happens repeatedly, it can look as though we are jinxed. Or did our emotions sabotage our thoughts? Let’s think about it.
Are We Jinxed?
We know that emotions can, and do, sabotage the best of minds. And often, this is what Murphy’s Law is — simply our own emotions tripping us up over and over again.
Emotions are very good at fouling up our thinking. Initially, we start thinking and feeling positive things. Then suddenly, without notice and with an absence of reason, we start feeling negative. As a result, a mind full of faith and courage turns to mush, sabotaged by our own negative emotions.
An Example of a Meltdown (Emotions that Sabotage Our Thoughts)
Here’s an example so we can see this meltdown of faith in real life.
Peter was in a boat and was invited, as the story goes, to step overboard and walk to Jesus on the water. A storm was raging. He got all mentally hyped up with confidence and threw his legs over board. Then, seeing the towering waves, he instantly felt afraid, lost his confidence, and sank. The emotion of fear seized him and destroyed his faith. He was sabotaged by his own fears. These fears were not someone else’s. They were Peter’s fears. His own emotions had destroyed him.
That “Something” in Murphy’s Law Is…
“If something can go wrong, it will go wrong,” says the law of Murphy. Although I do not believe in Murphy’s Law and consider it a negative attitude, we should think that the “something” is, more often than not, our emotions. And our emotions can sabotage us every time. In fact, there is always an emotion that can destroy the best of minds. And it is waiting, lurking in the dark recesses of our minds, ready to rob us of our success and our goodness.
The Secret of Success
Watch out for the emotion that can destroy your faith in a flash.
- Identify it. Ask yourself: What is the emotion that could turn the way I am thinking upside down?
- When you feel it, slam the door on it.
- Go back to the way you want to think and stubbornly refuse to change your mind. The exercise of mental stubbornness will help you develop a resistance against this emotion.
- Reinforce your positive thoughts by filling your mind with them. This is called positive reinforcement. Paul advocates it when he said, “Set your minds on things above.”
It’s hard to battle our emotions that sabotage our thoughts. But our success depends upon it. The battle is the secret. Hence, it’s when we struggle that our spiritual muscles are developed.
Enemy Emotions Are Instant Death to Healthy Thoughts
In other words, Murphy’s Law can be (and most often is) the invasion of our minds by an enemy emotion. That enemy emotion will spell instant death to our healthy thoughts if we give it an inch. Emotions play an important part in memory. They help us focus on critical information. If our minds are negative, our emotions can do a lot of damage. Alternatively, if our minds are positive, our emotions can do a lot of good.
Know Your Emotional Geography
The path to building the mind of Christ in our minds leads through the “guerrilla territory” of our emotions. Therefore, we can expect an attack at any moment. Know yourself. Learn your own emotional geography. Whatever happens, knowing your temperament is the best guide to quick identification of your emotions.
Disarm Murphy’s Law with This
Murphy’s Law is powerless to sabotage our emotions when we remember…
If God be for us, who can be against us?
We must fight the temptations in our mind that come from our own emotions. For this reason, we need to build a strong mind by filling it with the ammunition we will need to fight fear and doubt, and the more subtle feelings arising from both fear and doubt!
Since then you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. [Colossians 3:1]
What, then, shall we say in response to this? If God is for us, who can be against us? [Romans 8:31]
Resources to Help You
Our first and most important task in a world-changing mission is to learn how to think straight (and teach straight thinking) and combat the insurgence of crooked thinking in our culture and in our world today. If we become passive victims of this crooked way of thinking, we promote it. Furthermore, if we remain silent, we also give it credence. In Who Am I?, the reader progresses from how we have become “crooked thinkers” to how to break out of this prison of the mind to become instruments of change for a better world. We do this by recognizing from where we derive our value as humans. “Build a straight and powerful mind.” ~ Ray W. Lincoln
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