Arguing With the Air

The other day I was innocently driving along when suddenly I realized I had been arguing with someone in my mind over something that happened about a year ago, something I never brought up with them and never planned on bringing up. I was really letting them have it, and in my mind I felt vindicated because they were finally feeling terrible for the way they treated me.

I am a very, very disturbed individual.

Do you spend as much time as I do thinking about the future, reflecting on a recent rejection, regretting something said (or written) the day before, or wishing things could be just a little bit different?

If the brainwaves in your noggin are as overactive as mine, check out Henri Nouwen’s thoughts on thought and prayer:

Our minds are always active. We analyze, reflect, daydream, or dream. There is not a moment during the day or night when we are not thinking. You might say our thinking is “unceasing.” Sometimes we wish that we could stop thinking for a while; that would save us from many worries, guilt feelings, and fears. Our ability to think is our greatest gift, but it is also the source of our greatest pain. Do we have to become victims of our unceasing thoughts? No, we can convert our unceasing thinking into unceasing prayer by making our inner monologue into a continuing dialogue with our God, who is the source of all love.

Let’s break out of our isolation and realize that Someone who dwells in the center of our beings wants to listen with love to all that occupies and preoccupies our minds.

Join us this week at The Red as we talk about prayer.

5 Replies to “Arguing With the Air”

  1. Just yesterday I read this from my friend Laraine Herring – “We find ourselves in dangerous terrain when we take our direction from our thoughts, both in our day-to-day lives and in our writing. The terrain becomes even more dangerous when we assume that these thoughts are reality.”

    Thanks for this reminder, Shawn.

  2. I find more and more that these sorts of thoughts *are* a form of prayer, at least for me, especially when I am pouring my whole heart into them. I used to beat myself up over imagined conversations with imagined individuals, thinking it didn’t do anybody any good, but often it does *me* good.

    1. Glad those conversations work for you Brett. I think, for me, it depends on the trajectory I allow myself to follow. When I allow myself to stay in a place of unforgiveness or anger, it doesn’t do me much good. But if I can wrap up the internal conversation with at least a hint of mercy, for myself and the person I’m fighting, then I can see how that could be a form of prayer.

  3. ………..From Unceasing Thinking to Unceasing Prayer………..Our minds are always active. There is not a moment during the day or night when we are not thinking. You might say our thinking is unceasing…Sometimes we wish that we could stop thinking for a while that would save us from many worries guilt feelings and fears.

  4. I like to have some stuff on my blog that I write too but like everything else that takes discipline…God is so good… You know those days when you understand the authority you have in Christ you understand the grace that has been poured out on your life you understand that His love for you cannot be changed by your deeds or misdeeds and you just love it. You know those days when the hope and all the treasures that believers are promised in Christ seem like a silly dream. .No matter what you have been told Christ is Christ.

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