You Cover My Head

An array of distracting thoughts happen in seconds when I begin to pray. Thoughts of what the day may hold at the office or what church service will be like next week or what will I eat or breakfast. That is why I pray in a closed room with the lights off and pace the floor (in part to keep alert and warm).

But then every so often a thought of my sinful past, forgiven and forgotten by God, stops me cold. Why the sudden intrusion is a mystery and the source be it flesh or the devil? It's a flaming arrow piercing my skull in what is meant to be a holy moment with my Father.

Most of us are taught to take captive every thought (and that includes good thoughts - for God's thoughts are always higher and wiser).

This time the Lord revealed something in what might have presented an opportunity for an unclean thought to snake it's way through my mind and bite me with a sting of lust. There in that moment some twenty years ago a thought got entrenched in my mind.

If this person could see me now, where I am at and what I'm doing, then it will only prove what an absolute failure he or she had been to me. They had believed I'd fail, so I'll prove it!

Then before I could take the thought captive in prayer, the Lord showed me a hidden thought behind the sin. I was trying to prove to the ones that loved me that they were right in thinking I was a failure (which they didn't think at all)! It's a challenge to be free from the idea that you are disappointment.

There is a promise for us when the blows of disappointment try to strike our head. Blows that send us reeling and cause our thoughts to be damaged. Psalms 140:7 says, "O GOD the Lord, the strength of my salvation, thou hast covered my head in the day of battle." (KJV).

As much we can take captive every thought, we can rest assure in the day of battle, God covers are minds. This covering not keeps away evil thoughts, but helps us retain godly and holy thoughts. The Lord not only knows how to deliver us from the flaming arrows but dislodge the ones that have seared our minds!