Conflicted

Merriam-Webster defines ‘conflicted’ as:

experiencing or marked by ambivalence or a conflict especially of emotions <conflicted feelings>

When I am in conflict with myself, emotionally and spiritually, I find myself in the worst possible place. I am not at peace, and I literally make myself physically ill. More often than not, I take too long to see the forest for the trees.

A couple of days ago when I was severely conflicted with something I was going through, I wrote this:

In the place where I am
I don't see hope.
I don't see light.
I see only darkness.
I see fear.
I see rejection.

As you can see, I was in a kind of a dark place. I don’t do that often, but it happens.

A dear friend of mine gave me some very good and sound advice, and I followed it, to the letter. He said to write down my worries one by one and be as specific as possible when I write them down. Then I needed to break them down and do a critical root-cause analysis on each one to find out where the real concerns are and where they are coming from.

Once I identified the most basic atom of the issue, I needed to turn that over to God and allow Him to direct me from there. My friend also said that when I broke it all down and saw how tiny that problem really was and turned it over to God... because God can do massive things. And that tiny little problem didn’t seem to be so big after all.

I found it interesting as I wrote down my worries and concerns, that the things I thought I was most concerned about were not the things at the front of my mind. My real concerns, the cause of the anxiety, are the hidden things, some long-standing issues within. I’ve still got some more work to do to break these down and get through them, but at least I’m getting somewhere.

I think this thing I was going through was to confirm something to me – I AM enough.

Jeremiah 32:17 (NASB)

¹⁷ ‘Ah Lord God! Behold, You have made the heavens and the earth by Your great power and by Your outstretched arm! Nothing is too difficult for You,

2 Timothy 1:7 (KJV)

For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind.