Quicksand

     Do you know how to free yourself from quicksand in the natural realm (in the event you  happen to find yourself fighting a rodent of unusual size in a clip from The Princess Bride)?  Simply lie still and you will float to the top!  

    Quicksand has the unusual molecular property of acting as both a  liquid and a solid.  Guess what?  It is this way with negative, drowning,  life-sucking emotions and feelings.  If we want to escape from the pull, we
learn to pause.  We detect.  We take captive those thoughts that are contrary to God's way and Word. 

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       Someone told me once that comparing ourselves to others is like stepping into quicksand--comparison gymnastics suck the life out of us while pulling us slowly under.  The temptation to compare is deliberate and steady in its drag.  Comparative thoughts leave no wake.  They engulf and devour...wholesale.

   Although emotions and feelings are normal and God-given, when left unchecked, they also can become one slippery slope of disaster,  depression, jealousy, and resentment waiting to happen.  

    What do you see in people around you?  Micro-second snapshots of perfection? Happy families and smiling faces? Over-the-top accomplishments and victories? Peace with the world and God is good?  Amazing mothers who don't sweat the small stuff and who smile when the garlic toast burns?  

    I heard someone from the Proverbs 31 ministry on the radio recently who said that we tend to compare our inside with everyone else's outside (my paraphrase).  What a profound truth.  I compare my inside feelings and emotions to your outside appearance and displays of emotion.  Not exactly apples-to-apples here.   The better you look outside, the worse I feel inside.  

    Can you let a little of your inside out?  Can you drop the guard of perfection so that we see your base-line struggles?  And for me....can I learn that feelings just don't cut it?  Emotions are sinking sand.  Can I learn to pause for a second when the enemy of my soul whispers to me "You are a pretty good mom, but you could do better...." or "You will always be alone" or "Your age is starting to show, girl" or "If only you could have the house that she has" or "How can you compete without a PhD?  Whew, talk about an energy drain.  After detecting the drain, can I learn to capture those thoughts and hoist them up toward the eyes of Christ?

    Jesus has a way of helping us become less humanistic.  When I focus on myself and my emotions and feelings a bit longer than usual, down I go.  When I train myself to set my thoughts on Truth and fix my eyes on Him, well, the battle is won.  

    True.  It may be easier said than done, but what, after all, is a rodent of unusual size to God?  
        

The burning sand will become a pool, the thirsty ground  bubbling springs.
In the haunts where jackals once lay, grass and reeds and  papyrus will grow.
Isaiah 35:7 NIV