Mind over matter.

I was emailing a friend a couple of days ago and as so often happens my email sort of wandered into being more of a journal entry. I think I'm not the only one that happens to. I remember telling my ex boyfriend (boyfriend at the time) a few years back that he should start journaling again like when before we were dating and he told me, "J, you are my journal. After talking to you about all these thoughts in my head, I don't feel the need to journal about them."

I think that's accurate... Maybe people should be journaling less and talking more. Building relationships that are surrounded by trust and grace so that we are free to share our mind's wanderings no matter how crazy, depressing, daring, or deep they are. I think sometimes we journal just cause we don't have anyone close enough to talk to about the things. Maybe not. Regardless, I like it better when people can be my journal instead of sticking my thoughts onto paper that I'll probably never read again and that will only minister to people after I'm dead and my journal is read.

That's not what this post is about. It's about what I was telling my friend in the email. I was telling him how I'm a bit frightened about what I'll find in Bangladesh and if I'll be able to handle it. There's a lot of evil there that I'm not used to seeing here in the US. I'm not saying there is less evil here, but just that I'm more used to the evil I find here. I went on to say how I feel like I need to be practicing meditation on the truth that "Bigger is He who is in us than he who is in the world." If I'm focused on how big Jesus is, my Jesus, the One whose blood I claim and in whose name I live my life, than I think I'll be able to survive the evil I meet in Bangladesh and in the world in general. Human trafficking and sexual slavery is a very real evil and one that God has especially burdened my heart with, and it's hard enough reading stories about these issues but to put faces and names to them and meet face to face the reality of that I think will be pretty difficult. It will take a lot of mind and heart strength and discipline to focus on Jesus when evil is so prevalent around me. When our minds and eyes wander off onto the waves, we sink. But focusing on Jesus, we can do miraculous things.

I was texting my friend Tonisia who is a pretty hard core runner about different running techniques and she said she'd venture to say it's 90% mental. I think a lot of amazing things done in the world are 90% mental. Telling yourself you can do it, focusing on truths you can't see... I think we would be able to do more than we could ever imagine if we were more disciplined in our minds on what we allow ourselves to think we are capable of, and what we allow ourselves to meditate on.

Working with prostitutes is going to be hard. I just pray that my focus is on the bigness of the Jesus I serve and the power he has to change people and the sovereignty he has over every area in the world, regardless of the evil that has saturated it.

Mind over matter... Faith over sight.....