A thought by Lisa Whittle from her book, Jesus Over Everything (p. 20). Thomas Nelson. Kindle Edition. (Click on the book title to go to Amazon to buy the book.)
This is what she calls the problem of overanalyzing.
Lisa says, "Some of us come into this world with amazing natural radar. Add the Holy Spirit to that and you have a true gift to this world. Highly emotive people keep the rest of us accountable to the needs and hurts of folks—the world cannot exist without them. But thinking too much can also lead down dark roads. It can cause us to imagine things that aren’t true, to make up entire narratives that hurt us unnecessarily. Relying on our feelings is dangerous as well. Feelings serve as a gauge but not a boss. As a creative, overanalyzing can cause me such pain because nothing is ever good enough—perfection creeps in, doubt takes over, and before I know it, I have become paralyzed by the thoughts in my head that don’t have merit. This deadly 'over' has taken up far too much time in my life through the years, and because we share humanity, I know I’m not alone."
She goes on, "My shopping issues are a classic case of overindulging. But so are other things we like to ignore in a me-over-Jesus life. Eating. TV. Drinking. Social media. Putting too much on our calendars. The danger is we’re numb to this list. We’ve stopped being shocked by it, along with a lot of other things. Overindulgence is so common it doesn’t seem like that big of a problem. Accountability seems antiquated and silly. Even little old ladies have their faces buried in a phone at the doctor’s office now, so how can something that everyone does truly be harmful?
"But get in a roomful of friends talking about everyday struggles, and phone addiction is one of the first things that will come up. We will talk about it more in a later chapter, but if you don’t think we all aren’t aware of how bound to our phones we’ve become, you’re wrong. We are all talking about it. We just aren’t doing much more than that."
She goes on dealing with other overs and then says, "I don’t know what deadly overs are threatening to derail your Jesus-first life, but if you look at the root of your life complications, you’ll find the answer. What’s at the core of the issues you spend the most time cleaning up? Is it because of your overapologizing or overexplaining? Are your messes due to your overindulgences or overworking? Are you overanalyzing your situation, and your mind is a mess? I propose this with deep understanding: Jesus wasn’t over everything in your life, or it wouldn’t have been so."
And that is something we need to realize, isn't it?
Yes, yes!
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