31 Days :: Day 30 – Redirecting Your Happy Place

This Morning:

• As we are coming to the end of the study, be praying about a plan that will help you continue fighting mind battles. Ask God to give you some specific tools to use from now on. We will put together a plan tomorrow.
• Journal about your thoughts this morning.

We’ve all heard it before. “Go to your happy place.” Sometimes that place is innocent… just something that we mentally focus on that makes us calm down and feel better for a moment. But sometimes happy places are dangerous escape routes. Not the good kind of escape. The kind of escape where we avoid real life by entertaining junk.

When I was a kid, I found my escape in thinking about cute boys. Because I was insecure about my looks and about who I was, and because the in-real-life boys didn’t seem to like me, I fantasized about the boys in the movies. I had all the teen magazines, the posters on my walls, and I would literally sit around and think about possible scenarios of meeting them. This is how I escaped my PERCEPTION of my real life.

As I grew older, even into my twenties and into my marriage, this pattern continued. It became a huge stronghold to me because I actually avoided real life. My fantasy life was so much more enjoyable than my perceived reality that I was ugly and that no boys would ever like me. So, I opted for being alone with my thoughts instead of being alive in the reality of what God had blessed me with.

There is so much more to say about how this affected my decision-making, but let’s just say that to go back and do it over, I would have redirected my “happy place.” I would have found it in Jesus. That in itself would have saved me a lot of heartache… and it would have also saved those who love me from a lot of heartache.

Sometimes I think we don’t realize how big a deal our thoughts are. Instead of dealing with unpleasant problems in our lives head-on, sometimes we choose to entertain the thoughts that Jesus warns us against… insecurity, worry, anxiety, fear, anger, envy, jealousy, impurity, etc. Yep, that’s right. The negative stuff can even be our “happy place.” Maybe the correct term would be “comfort place.”

So where do you go in your mind when you’re trying to escape life? Or even when you’re trying to escape other thought patterns? Would you call that place healthy or unhealthy?

My challenge to all of us is to redirect our happy places. Even if we consider them to be healthy. Let’s instead make Jesus our happy place. Let’s stop allowing our minds to just float off to places that will make us feel better for a while. Instead, let’s go to scripture. To prayer. To encouraging Christian music.

Peace is what we’re really looking for, right? But how many times has your personal happy place actually led to peace? Permanent peace? The kind of peace that God promises to us when we keep our minds focused on Him.

You will keep in perfect peace those whose minds are steadfast, because they trust in you. – Isaiah 26:3

To Make You Think:

1. What is your happy place?
2. Is it healthy or unhealthy?
3. Do you feel that you have avoided reality in some ways when you have escaped to your happy place? Has it ever been an addiction for you? If so, how?

Continuing on…  31 Days :: Day 31 – Creating Your Plan of Attack