God: I want to explain what “a spirit of fear” entails:
- Paranoia. What will happen? Who will get you? I don’t give you a spirit of paranoia.
- Leaps. “Leap of faith” sounds like a good thing. Not if you aren’t leaping with me. Many “leaps of faith” can be “leaps of fear” when they are made without consulting me.
- Withholding. When you are withholding to be responsible, but I have commanded you to give, you are acting in fear. A sound mind has no problem considering me in the midst of trouble. This is the opposite cousin to “Leaps”.
Leaps and Withholding can be the right action—if I direct.
Faith requires my direction. Otherwise, you may be acting in fear.
Fear is rarely middle-of-the-road. It’s almost always #1 combined with either #2 or #3, or both in different areas.
Tell me: which do you hit the most?
Joshua: Paranoia. I see a lot of Leaps but it’s often after Withholding. At some point, I willfully do a job that you direct me to do poorly, hoping it will fail but I can claim “I was obedient!”
God: Hmm. What is the cure?
Joshua: A sound mind!
God: (shakes his head) That’s like the saying the cure for a headache is “not a headache”. Yes—how do you get that?
Joshua: Well, “God has not given us a spirit of fear”. It’s about what you’ve given us. And that’s talking about the Holy Spirit. I already have the Holy Spirit. So… it seems kinda weird, actually.
God: (nods) So how do you access something you already have?
Joshua: Well… I’m not sure. If I already have it… and it’s not working… I want to say it doesn’t actually work. But that would be heretical, so I’d rather stop talking now…
God: Joshua, we are talking through a problem. You often weed out bad conclusions to come to good ones; mentioning the bad conclusions isn’t sin, it’s study. Let’s talk through this.
You already have the Holy Spirit. This is an indisputable fact. And the verse is not “God will not”, but “God has not”. It is reasonable for you to assume access is already available.
So you have access. “Power, love and a sound mind”. That is the key.
If you only had a spirit of a sound mind, you wouldn’t have reason for peace—you wouldn’t have the power. If you only had the power, you wouldn’t know how to use it. And if you lack love, you lack the drive to use both.
My love is to you. My power is to you. My sound mind is to you. And also in you.
Knowing who I am, knowing I am an overcomer, means you can have a sound mind. A sound mind isn’t in a vacuum, but in understanding who I am.
Joshua: But when we give our problems to you… oh. I get it.
God: Share your thought.
Joshua: I was going to say but when we give our problems to you, don’t you give us the peace that surpasses understanding? But that’s the key—we make our prayer and supplications to you.
God: (nods) Joshua, you have a serious problem. I don’t mean that in a shaming manner—I mean that quite directly. Not you are a problem, but instead you have one.
It’s in this question: When can you make the switch to a sound mind? You tend to do the following: walk in obedience, but being aware of anxiety, but being too afraid to stop lest you miss my timing and end up in disobedience.
In other words, you rarely feel you have the time to be obedient with courage.
It may sound good to “push ahead”. But if you always have to, my sound mind isn’t doing anything for you. You’re missing out on my resource. When things are hard are when you need my sound mind MOST.
Joshua: …Yeah, that sucks. I don’t know what to do about that.
God: (nods) Joshua. I’ll tell you.
Joshua: Yay!
God: Alright. You need to change the way you think.
Joshua: …Um. That sounds like the “headache cure is no-headache” thing you said earlier.
God: No. You need to change the way you think outside of the times of stress. That way, when times of stress come, you have the natural habits in place to CONTINUE walking in my sound mind. In other words, practice walking in my sound mind when there are no true stakes.
Feel some anxiety rising deciding what to eat for dinner? Ask me to show you how to walk in a sound mind.
Not sure what to wear for the day? Ask me to show you how to walk in a sound mind.
Not sure if you should get up to use the restroom or wait until another moment during an event? Ask me to show you how to walk in a sound mind.
One of the things you do—which seems good, but isn’t the training you need—is to ask for direction. That’s not bad. But it’s incomplete. I’ve told you in the past that as you grow, I would give you less direction on menial things. For a while, you were completely incapable of handling them. That’s not true now. But [many] years ago, it was.
I train. It’s hard to receive training during the big stuff. So invite me into teaching you how to walk in a sound mind, even when the stakes are no concern. The examples I gave to you are because you see it as an acceptable level of anxiety. You think it is “acceptable”, as if I am pleased with your undertone of anxiety. I want you to be free.
An undertone of anxiety makes complex tasks too hard. Which is why you have a hard time tackling long-term hard tasks. Start practicing “a sound mind” with me.
The basic truth is: you deny your anxiety until it reaches a fever pitch. “Be anxious for nothing”. It is easier to practice on the little, and then you’ll more easily handle the big.
You are quickly going to realize you are anxious almost all the time. I’m not scared of it. Believe me—I’ve worked with very anxious people. As I work with you in the little, you’ll have a sound mind in practice, through walking in step with me, for the big.