“For the Mighty One is holy, and he has done great things for me.”
Luke 1:49 NLT
The moment I open my eyes in the morning, it is difficult not to dwell on the challenges that lie ahead of me. The piece of training I don’t want to do! That awkward phone call I’ve been putting off. The pile of papers I simply must deal with but which I find so boring. This is because our brain is wired to negativity. This is a consequence of our human instinct for survival. We are naturally risk-averse, preferring safety ahead of danger.
Once a negative thought captures our brain, we experience the stress it generates as we react from our ‘fight or flight’ mode. This thought gets locked into our brain, stress stays with us, perhaps intensifies, before another negative thought enters and follows the same pattern. It’s not that we don’t experience positive thoughts, but these are passing moments since the brain fails to hold onto them. We instinctively forget the positive experiences in our life. We’re too busy processing the negative to retain the positive events. Perhaps there’s one significant negativity loop that plays consistently in your head and this is sufficient to dampen your mood and make life an uphill struggle.
Mary might have imagined the consequences of her unexpected pregnancy and consistently taken a negative view of her situation. Instead, she focused on the positive aspects of God and the promise God had made through Gabriel’s words. We too have to take time to make our brains aware of the positive situation we are in, given that God is on our side.
As you journey through Advent, perhaps start writing up a gratitude journal. This is simply a place to capture positive thoughts. A negative thought is like a drop of ink. Drop that on the page of your life, and it stains and obliterates things. But if you drop it into a bowl of water, it dissipates and has very little impact upon that water. Drop your negative thoughts into the bottomless bowl of God’s promises.
QUESTION – What strategies do you employ to combat negative thinking?
PRAYER – Lord God, you have indeed done great things for me. I thank and praise you.
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