Why Your Mind Can't Rest at Night | And How to Fix It
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That the thing that I'm thinking about is not actually the thing. That's not the problem. The problem is the fact that my mind is trying to find a place to rest, and it is searching everywhere and it is scooting all sorts of different directions. It's trying to find somewhere that it can rest. I, I don't know if you've ever bothered to ask the question: where does your mind default to when it's left to its own devices?
Where does it go? What happens? Where is it trying to land? 'Cause there's a big difference between existing and living, between getting through a day, and, here's the one, being at peace inside the day. There's a big difference between getting through it and being at peace in the midst of the day. Now, this is not about you trying to fix yourself.
We learn about that in Old Habits Die Hard. You can't do that. This is not about this. This is about you training your mind to fix your mind on something or someone that can bear the weight of what is going on in your brain. Now, I think this is so fascinating when I look at the world today. We live at the time in history where we're the most comfortable, most best resourced, most connected people on planet Earth, and yet we're the most anxious, fearful, depressed, and insecure generation on planet Earth.
What is going on here? I mean, our whole city is built on good vibes, you know, like, "She'll be right, mate," is kind of our national language, and we love the barbecue, and we love the party, and we love the beach, and we love hanging out, and we love long weekends. But the reality is our mind is spending most of the time trying to manage anxiety with, uh, distractions It's just trying to manage it with distraction when we need to be able to resolve it with peace.
You scroll your phone just so you can forget about everything else that's going on, but you don't ever deal with what's actually going on underneath the surface. And as you scroll, you're thinking, "Well, if I just get one more deal, or if I just, if I just get this, or if I just get that, or one more holiday, or one more thing to make me feel like I'm doing okay, it'll be fine."
And you might score something, and it gets a little bit settled for a while, but then it comes back. It starts racing again because your mind does not have a place to rest. It doesn't have a place to land. I actually interviewed a whole bunch of people through the junction this week to see what keeps them up late at night and what worries them the most.
I was kind of shocked, because I was thinking climate change, you know, end of the world, all that kind of stuff. No, no. The vast majority was, "I scroll at night, and I'm discontent about my life, because everybody is doing better than me. Everybody's got more than me. Why haven't I got what they've got now?"
And then my mind just goes. That was the predominant thing. And I said, "Here's an idea. Don't scroll." Turn it off. Oh, but then I can't go to sleep. You're not going to sleep anyway, you know? You know, there's a... We're all m- we're all messed up. We're all messed up. But here's the deal: our mind is looking for a place to land.
It is searching for a place to call home. Now, what we're talking about this morning is not a character flaw, it's not a, it's not a faith failure. It's just what happens when you don't give your mind a fixed place to rest. If it's unsure of the destination to rest, it's gonna go haywire, and it kinda does laps, laps of existence, the abyss of e- gl- existence, it goes around.
I can remember we took Anita, that you saw up here before, on a, uh, mystery flight years ago. It was her first time on a plane. And so we took her on this mystery flight, and we took off and everything's going fine, and then some tu- turbulence, and Anne's on this side and Anita's on that side, and Anita's going, "Is this normal?"
I'm going, "Yeah, yeah, it's normal." "Is this normal, hon?" "No, it's not." "Yeah, yeah, it's normal. It's normal." Anyway, we're coming into land at Hamilton Island, and it is raining cats and dogs. It's like, seriously, bucketing down everywhere, and I'm going... And he's getting lower and getting lower, and then she's going, "Is i- is this, is this normal?"
"Yeah, yeah, it's normal." "Is this normal?" "No." Like, and then he suddenly gets down low enough that I could actually see under the clouds, and I felt like I could put my hand out, like, and, like, drip it in the water. It was so low. And she's going, "Is this normal?" I'm going, "Yeah, yeah, it's normal." Like, "We're gonna die."
And then suddenly, he just guns it, and he's up there around again. And he gets some point, he goes, "Hey, really sorry, really sorry, everyone. The captain speaking. Uh, couldn't see the runway. I'm gonna come round and have another crack." Have another crack? I want you to land this thing, buddy. Have another crack?
He needed to go back to pilot school. He should have said, "Hi, ladies and gentlemen. It's been a nice flyover. Look at the over, and it's beautiful down there. We'll just spin around and I'll land this thing safely, and you'll be on your holiday." Oh. "But no, no, I can't see the runway. We'll come round and have another crack."
It didn't give my mind anywhere to rest. It was, like, freaking out. And she's freaking out, and I'm just realizing, Anne, we're gonna die, so. Your mind has to have a place to rest. Now, I wanna share something from the Old Covenant, Book of Isaiah. I wanna talk about Isaiah for a minute because they're, the people here are in the same kind of thing.
They're in turmoil because they're about to be invaded by a foreign country, and they are really upset, and they are really unsettled. And Isaiah has got some news for them, from God f- to them. Now, Isaiah was a prophet for God, that means someone who spoke for God, about 700 BC, before Christ, and he's there to try and get them to fix their mind on something else rather than what looks like the obvious thing that is going to happen.
And so he's really, it's not an abstract theology, he's really trying to say to them, in the midst of crisis, he's trying to say, "Listen, listen, you need to fix your eyes and your mind on somewhere where you can get some rest." So let's have a look at Isaiah 26, starting verse, uh, three. Says, "You will keep in perfect peace those who..."
Now, at first, you think you're gonna ask the question, "Who's you?" Well, we'll be introduced to who later on, but who's you? Well, I can tell you now, who's you is not you, so it's a different you. So, "You will keep in perfect peace," not you, another you, "whose minds are steadfast because they trust in you." Keep going.
"Trust in the Lord forever, for the Lord, the Rock himself, is the Rock eternal." Not you, you can't do this, but there is a you in there. He's called the Lord. So what he says to this, let's just pull it apart. He, he says, "Perfect peace." Now, that perfect peace is actually only one word. It's a Hebrew word called shalom.
It actually is doubled up, shalom shalom, but we didn't... That doesn't, the English doesn't really work, peace, peace. So he said, "Perfect peace." But what he's trying to get across is there is a perfect peace. There is something that gets beyond the shallow thinking and actually gets down deep. It's like, it's like trying to help them.
This is not just a shallow thing. There is a perfect peace for you that you can get to that goes right through and through the entire portion of who you are, and it makes you steadfast. Now, what's interesting about this is that the people that he's saying gets the perfect peace, they haven't resolved every circumstance.
They can't resolve this at all. And it's not the person with the tidiest life. It's the person whose mind is steadfast. Now, the imagery behind this, a steadfast mind, is like a large beam. A large beam. This, this large beam here, that's your mind. That's all the stuff, that's the weight of your mind that is going on, 'cause this thing is massive.
It's, this is big and there's a lot going on. But it's on a solid. He says, "If you steadfast, you can rest your mind on this pillar because it's steadfast. It's not gonna move. It's not gonna break. It's not gonna shake. It's gonna be there." And then all he does after he's told them, "There's this perfect peace.
There's this per- peace that comes right through. You can have it. It's right there." But there's also A rock, a stable place to bear the weight of your mind and the stuff that you're working through. And then he just reinforces it three times. He says, "Trust in the Lord, trust in the Lord forever, for the Lord, the Lord himself is the rock eternal."
So anytime something's said once, you pay attention. Twice, you really need to listen. Three times, it's a done deal. Yeah. So the Lord is saying, "Hey, listen, this is a done deal." It's kind of like when you get in trouble and you hear mom call your name, "Kevin. Kevin. Kevin. Kevin, Kevin, Kevin." And once you get three, that's it, you're in trouble.
It's like, so he's trying to say, "This is, this is something you need to pay attention to." And he's trying to help them understand something that we all forget, us modern readers. The peace isn't the goal. Everyone's running around, "I just need to just meditate here and find some peace. I'll just empty my mind.
Empty my mind. Ooh, I'm having trouble with this, I'm having trouble with this." Do you know, Jesus says it's actually very unhelpful. He told a story once that said, "If you empty your mind and you don't have it filled with the right things, you can end up worse than where you're starting." So it's not this.
Peace is not the goal. The person is the goal And that's the you that's not you, and that's the who. It's the Lord. He's saying, "You rest. You put the full weight of your mind on the rock eternal and watch what happens." That's where you find rest. Now, let's pull this into the new covenant, 'cause, you know, some of you are going, "Oh, okay, but you're talking about the old covenant.
That's for ancient Israel. Does it, does it, does it really come through, 'cause you've taught us a whole lot about this. Does it come through?" Yes, it does. Let's talk a little bit about Paul. Now, Paul was, uh, one of the greatest apostles. He came to the game late, and the reason he came to the game late is because he was a Pharisee and a Sadducee.
He was one of the top religious leaders. In fact, when he reads his pedigree out, it's like, it's impressive. It's impressive. He is the best of the best of the religious leaders. But then he has this encounter with Jesus, and Jesus sends him blind for three days so he can see something, and it turns out that that worked well.
He starts following Jesus. But then, this is the point you wanna remember, particularly if you have an intellectual pathway and you think, like, "I need to get some of that deep teaching," or whatever it is that you think you need. Anyway, Paul says, "I am this. I'm the master of this. When it comes to the law, I know everything.
I'm perfect in all 613 laws. And guess what? I consider them all rubbish to know Christ and the power of His resurrection." There's your deep teaching right there. That's what you gotta get to, not the other stuff. So he has got credentials here. But now let's have a look at some of the things he says. "They drank from the spiritual rock that accompanied them, and that rock was Christ."
So where Isaiah didn't have the full revelation, he just called The Rock eternal, Paul's now giving some framework. He said, "This rock, this rock is Christ. This is Jesus Christ. This is the rock. This is where your mind, this, that your big, heavy mind that's got a lot going on, can rest." And then he goes further on at different times and he says this to the readers, the, us now, which they never had.
Isaiah's readers never had that. He says, "I never will leave you and I never will forsake you." That's a huge promise. Never will I leave you. He didn't say that to them then, but he says to, that to us now in the new covenant. Never, which means that I'm not a rock you can just, well, I hope He'll look after me.
No, no, it's signed, sealed, and delivered. It's a rock that is stable. It's a rock He's promised. He's put it in writing. He's ratified it in His own death, burial, and resurrection. He's saying, "You can trust. I am a rock that you can put the full weight of your mind on." And Paul wrote probably two-thirds of the new covenant.
Even though he was a late arrival, he's still got to do a few things. But what's interesting is when Paul makes the statement, "Never will I leave you and never will I forsake you" He did something different there because they were terrified of being invaded by a nation, all that kind of stuff He puts something in here which is gonna be prevalent to everybody in the Western world.
He goes after the number one competitor for the human heart's worship, the number one idol, and this is what he says, "Keep your lives from the love of money." Not money, but from the love of money. He said, "Keep your lives from the love of money and you'll be content with what you have." Why is he putting that in there for us?
Because this is the thing that you and I are tricked into believing that, if I just have enough money, oh, we'll be so happy if I can do that holiday, if I can do this. I just... We think that the answer to all our problems is money. And he's saying, "No, no, no. The answer to all your problems is that I'll never leave you and I'll never forsake you.
Your trust needs to be in me, on the rock eternal." He t- but he ties it to this because this is the thing that gets everybody in trouble. Not the money itself, but the love of it. The love of money to get more will cause you to compromise your faith. And when you compromise your faith or compromise your values, your mind literally goes haywire.
It starts going at 78 speed because you're violating something that you know is not right. So this is amazing. He's saying, "The rock is eternal. It's already promised. It's stable. You just gotta put your mind there, the full weight of your mind. This is it." And this is the first thing that needs to happen.
You put first things first. This is the first thing. You get that, and then your mind begins to rest and things start to fall into place. Just in case you want a few other portions of Scripture out of the new covenant for Paul, he mentions in Colossians, "Set your mind on things above. Set your mind on the rock of Christ.
Take every thought captive, make it subject to Him. Don't be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication and thanksgiving, present your request to God and He'll guard your heart with this supernatural peace." Now, there's a little bit of a trapdoor here I don't want you to fall into.
What I'm talking about here is I'm not talking about you trying to try harder to fix yourself. We already established that in Old Habits Die Hard. It's not about you trying harder. It's about you surrendering and releasing and trusting Him more. It's not a verdict about your anxious mind, so you're trying to work it out.
You know, 'cause, you know, that can lead to depression, but there's lots of things that can cause anxiety. There can be a biological thing, there can be circumstantial things, there can be seasonal things, there can be spiritual things. So I'm not, I'm not even giving you a diagnosis for your mind. If I'm s- if, if I'm pushing this right down for you, here is what it is.
I'm giving you a resource for your mind. I'm giving you the resource where to position your mind so at the end of the day, your mind is positioned on the rock eternal and also the rock of Jesus Christ, which is the rock eternal, at the beginning of your day. There is no peace to be found anywhere in this world.
You will not find genuine peace anywhere, and you will certainly not find a genuine peace that gets you secure for beyond the doorway of death. So how do you, let's get real practical, how do you train your mind? How do you train your mind to get, to get back to resting firmly upon the rock? I think there's a portion of scripture that we've missed over the years.
It's in the Book of Genesis. And I think we've got everything back to front, and this is the reason why our mind is struggling. Most, most modern calender, ca- calendars and things like that and every goal-setting thing has got, I think has got it all wrong. And there is a rhythm that was established at the start which still should be in play, and we're not following it.
God creates the heavens and the Earth. He gets it, He creates it. He's divi- designed it in His divine design room and now He's created the whole thing, and now He's speaking it, and now the Holy Spirit's making it all happen. And then He says, "Let there be light," and there was light. And God saw the light was good.
And He separated the light from the darkness, called the light Day, darkness Night. And this is what He says, "And there was evening and there was morning of the first day." Now, that's interesting, isn't it? Evening and morning of the first day? That's not how we operate. We get up, go like the clappers at the start of the day, and then crash at the end.
But He's saying, "No, no." He says evening and morning. Now, go back and read Genesis chapters one and two and you'll see it. Six times. There is six times that rhythm is actually put forward. Says, "It's evening and it's morning of the first day." Believe it or not, your day starts with the Lord in the evening, and then out of rest, goes to activity, and ends back in rest.
It's a rhythm. It's a rhythm. Adam would walk with God in the cool of the evening, and they would talk together, and they would plan together. "What are we gonna build over here next day? What's gonna happen over there?" Before he did anything, before any activity, it started going into rest and going into sleep.
I think we have to change that rhythm. That's, that's what our mind is desperately trying to find. So I want you to think about, this is getting real practical now. I want you to think about your life now as a series of flights, series of flight plans. So, uh, what happens with a flight plan is you talk about it the night before, and you plan what you think is the, what are the things that you need to hit tomorrow on the, on the destinations.
And then you consult with the Lord and say, "Is there anything that you need to add into this? Is there anything that you want to add into this? Is there other things that should be on the flight plan or taken off the flight plan?" And you discuss it with the Lord prayerfully in the evening, what's gonna happen in the activity This is where you follow Jesus.
Think, "Come unto me, all who weary." He says, "Come to me. Peace I leave you. The peace I give to you." This is you setting your mind on the steadfast rock, and it's starting with you in the evening talking to the Lord about tomorrow, what you think is tomorrow, which is actually just the second half of today.
And you talk to the Lord. What are the things that's on your heart? What are the things that's on His heart? What are you... What's the plan? Do we need to make any adjustments? But here's where it gets real interesting. So then what you do is you come to have that little discussion, it doesn't need to be a long period of time, and then say, "You know what?
Okay. Lord, I'm gonna rest that now on the rock eternal, and I'm going to close my eyes and go to sleep. Because my mind doesn't need to spin around trying to find a place to land, it's already landed. And I'm gonna trust that while I sleep, you are gonna put the final flight plan together while I sleep.
And you're gonna deposit into me what I need for tomorrow for circumstances that I don't even know I'm gonna need yet." So He does that, and at the same time, He's also dealing with the things and the knocks and the stuff that happened the day before. He's producing healing, and He's producing courage for you, and He- and He's settling you, and He writes the plan.
Meanwhile, you're fast asleep. Your mind's not racing because you got the plan there, it's just surrendered to God. Then what happens is- No ... you wake up in the morning. Now, when you wake up now, there are two ways that human beings wake up in the morning. Let me model them for you. "Good morning, Lord. Good Lord, it's morning."
And both of those set the tone of your day. If you go, "Hey, good morning, Lord. How's the flight plan coming along? I'm checking in. Is there any last-minute adjustments? Is there things that need to happen, things before, before we get underway?" It's, it's the last flight check before we take off. You know? Get ready to taxi and, and...
When you start off with, "Good Lord, it's morning," that means you've got no idea what's gonna happen for the day, and now you're gonna run like mad and you're gonna be treading like, like a dog paddle all day long trying to catch up, 'cause you don't know what you're doing. You don't know where you're going.
And your mind's gonna be frustrated because it doesn't know what's happening either. So that's what happens. You settle it there, the flight check. This is about you seeking first the kingdom of heaven. And this is not a big thing. I'm not talking a big... I've been practicing this for two weeks. I'm talking, I'm talking about, this is not something you, you kinda like, "Oh, this is gonna take me hours to do that."
No, no. It's just a, it's just a conversation. "Good morning, Lord. Is there any changes to the flight plan?" Oh, okay. Anything else on your heart, though? Oh, you need to think about this today. Why do I need to think about that? Oh, you'll find out later. There's gonna be a little deviation coming up. Okay. And then you just say, "Okay, that's fine."
Now, if you want to, you can go and look at your phone. Go and look at your socials or whatever you want, but you don't do anything until after the flight plan. So you, "Okay, we've got that now. That's what we're doing." 'Cause now you're starting to taxi. You're on the run- you're getting ready to go. And then he goes, "Okay, it's time to lift off.
Your first destination where you stop will be your family." And it's like, so now this is where I'm, I'm with my family. Okay, well, while you're in this destination, be there. Be fully present there. Don't be worrying about what's coming up next. Be fully present there. This is your opportunity with your kids or your spouse or whoever's you're connected with to help pour into them, to help encourage them, to help them stay focused.
What's God saying to you? What's happening? How can I pray for you? It's a simple, simple thing, but that's just as you're kind of taxiing, you know? Because you haven't really launched right into the day yet, and you just do that, and that's just all seeking first the Kingdom of Heaven. Then you really take off.
Now you're into it. Now you're into off. Now we need to go to the next thing after I've had time with the family and kids, now I'm going to work and, and no sooner you get there, okay, these are the, these are the things we've got to hit across the course of the day, and I'll guarantee you suddenly a message from the tower.
Now, the tower is the Holy Spirit. He sits with you. You're gonna need to deviate, go 200 kilometers off to the left because there's a whopping great storm coming. Fair enough. I'm like, we deviate over... I don't even know why I'm deviating. The storm might go away. You gotta go over there, and suddenly you bump into someone.
And someone says, "Hey, I'm really not doing so good." And you go, "I can't help you, man. I'm, I'm on a flight plan." But you're not on a flight plan, actually. You're actually on a deviation. You know what? Let's talk. Let's chat. What do you need? How can I help? How can I serve you? And that, that leads to here. Okay, look, we're like, we're like 100 kilometers off course here now.
And then another one turns up. Now I'm 200 kilometers off course. Doesn't matter. Your mind is still at rest because your mind knows the final destination, so you can move. You can flex. You can flex inside there. And then the Lord will say, "Okay, it's time to get back on course, but you know what? Don't worry about that one and that one.
Let's go straight to that one." And they go to there. Okay, and then it comes, comes to the end of the day. And the end of the day, it's like you're walking out, and then you're heading back home. And it's like, okay, it's time to land back down. Let's just land the plane. And you land back down, and your mind knows I'm back on the rock, the solid rock of Christ where I started.
I'm back at peace. And then while you're taxiing back to where the plane's gonna stay for the night, then there's a little bit of debrief going, "I had to go. Well, man, we missed two things." You know, like, "Yeah, do you, do you wanna bring those in tomorrow?" "I don't know. I think so. Maybe. Maybe it doesn't worry about it."
You know? And it's so, you... So in the taxiing thing, you're just talking about, okay, you're looking at the next flight plan. So for tomorrow, I didn't hit that, and I didn't hit that, so I... That's probably gonna come in. Well, you know what? I didn't hit that, but no one really worried about it, so maybe I won't worry about it.
And what else have you got? Lord, what do you got on your, what do you got on your mind for tomorrow? 'Cause we're a Spirit-led people, and so therefore, same thing. You get to the end of the night and you go, "Okay, Lord, there it is. That's the basic flight plan, the, the, the things that I feel like we need to do, and I'm over to You to see what You wanna do, and then we'll just go wherever we need to go."
And if there's a deviation that's required during the day, then that's fine. Mind stays peaceful because it's okay. I know where I'm landing Are you getting it? You're looking at me like, you go, "I have no idea what this guy's talking about." Your mind has to have a place to rest. It will never rest if you don't give it the designation, if it doesn't know where it's going, and if it doesn't know where it's starting from.
So then, you'll basically have a conversation. Okay, so it's this, this, this, this. All right. Well, you know what, Lord? I'm gonna hand that to you, and I'm gonna rest. I'm gonna hang out with the family. I'm gonna go to sleep, and in the morning I'll check in to see if the flight plan is still the same or whether we need to add or adjust anything.
It's so simple. It's so simple, it's laughingly simple, and I'm... What I'm talking about is not you have to spend hours and hours. Uh, like I've been s- I've been practicing this for now, for the last two weeks to really... I've known about it for a long time, but I've actually been intelligently practicing it, and it's not, this is not big.
Like, this is like a two-second, like a two-minute conversation in the morning, and it's like 10 minutes of a nighttime. Oh, Lord, I think I got this, this, this. Anything you got on your mind? Am I okay? When we hang around, maybe 10 or 15 minutes, and then it's parked. Basically, I just said, "Over to you. You guys figure out what's the right flight plan, and I'll pick it up in the morning."
And your mind wakes alert and ready and at peace to go wherever you wanna go. And if you need to deviate, it doesn't care because it doesn't matter. So, if you're struggling with your mind right now, here's, here's the deal. Some of us look really great on the outside, really impressive, say all the right things, do all the right things, but you know your mind is continually circling this abyss of existence because it doesn't have a place to land.
And I'm not saying to you, try and fix yourself. What I'm saying to you is, you have to fix your mind. You gotta give your mind... This thing is powerful. This thing's powerful, and it needs a lot of support to keep it in the right place, and that support is only gonna come from a relationship with Christ for yourself.
It's only gonna come from there. Anything you put your mind support on within the context of this world is going to let you down It's going to let you down, and if you put it, you know, if you put it in the wrong things, it then gets really confused, and you end up, your, your mind ends up, you know, if you've got a Mac, with this blue spinning wheel of death.
It's like, "What is the matter with this thing?" But it's overloaded. It's just shutting down. It's like, "You have too much going on here. I don't know where to rest anymore." And you've gotta give it that place to rest, but you s- it's not something you gotta strive hard to earn. It's not that at all. It's you need to figure out perhaps what that word was about earlier on.
Perhaps we got a tradition that we've grown up in. You get up, you go to work, you run all day, you collapse at the end, and then you repeat it Maybe that's what you've been used to. Maybe this is just a change of rhythm. Well, I walk with Adam in the cool of the day. I'd like to, I'd like to walk with you in the evening.
Let's talk about what the second half of the day, when the activity comes, is gonna look like. Let's plan a little bit and let's get your mind at rest, ready for what is coming up. And across this last few weeks that I've been doing this, I have, I've had a number of serious interruptions, and which would normally cause me to get a little bit twitchy.
It's like, "I gotta get some things done around here." And this is the worst place in the world for interruptions, I'm telling you right now. But it's, it's like suddenly go, "Oh, it's okay. Go out there. All right, go out there." And at the end of the day, I got done the things that God, Lord wanted me to get done, and the things that I had on there that I thought I should do- Yeah
actually turned out they didn't need to be done then. 'Cause here's the other thing, us as human beings, when God gives you an idea, you think you're to do it today or tomorrow. Some of the stuff that I'm doing, we were laughing the other day, Anita and I. Some of the stuff that we've been doing down here over the last 15 years is something that God put in my heart when I was about 30.
Like, that's like 15 years ago. How long is-
It's not all about today, but we can't... That's where our mind has to rest on Him, because He gives you pictures of things that might be for now five, seven, 10 years away, but He's just pre-warning you. That's coming, and then He prepares you. Now, the thing is that while you... If you can get your mind at rest about a potential flight plan for tomorrow that the Lord will actually ratify in the morning, if you can do that, while you sleep, God doesn't sleep.
He's working in you. He's working in you. He's deal... He will then deal with the things that you actually, because your mind is going like that, you don't ever reflect on because they're just too painful or something like that. But when you get that state, then God says, "Okay, now I can actually deal with some things.
We can fix some things. I can actually heal you. I've got some space. And I know tomorrow you think you got, doing this, but there's gonna be a serious thing that's happening. You're gonna need this." And then you suddenly, you get to it, and it's like you don't have to be freaking out like, "Oh, what am I gonna do?
Oh, okay. All right, we can do that, make that deviation." 'Cause your mind is sitting at rest in Christ. It's never about trying to calm our mind That's an Eastern kind of thing. No, it's about fixing your mind and doing that first. First things first. Start with him at rest in the evening before you get to the activity part of your day, and then end at rest with him in the evening, and everything will begin to change.
Everything. I'm serious. I've only been doing it for two weeks, and, y- you know, I'm kind of a bit embarrassed about the fact that I... Uh, 'cause I've known about it for ages. I think, I think the first time we heard about it, Philip, was probably Wayne Cordeiro, I think, talked to us about that. Dr. Wayne Cordeiro that does the SOPE devotions, is like, "That's-" I've known about it, but I haven't actually practically said, "I- I'm gonna do that and see how much it changes."
And it sounds so simple because it is so simple. And it's not huge amounts of study and prayer and things like that. It's just instantly just walking with God in the garden and allowing him to settle your mind. "You can put your mind on me. Everything, no matter how busy it is, no matter how much you got going on, I can hold it.
Now, let's work out the flight plan, what's gonna happen the next day." And then you just go cycle around. It's, it's just a reversal of where we've got at the moment, where everybody doesn't think about that. And so they wake up in the morning going, "Good Lord, what am I gonna do now?" And then it's a frantic rush to the day to do absolutely everything that you need to do, and you feel like you don't do anything particularly well, and you're not serving anybody, home or away, particularly well because you haven't got the time to position yourself so that you can rest in sleep, and so God can actually deposit into you what needs to be there.
So on your flight plan, I can tell you there'll be a few things that God will give you. He'll say to you, "I want you to daily sit at my feet." That's something we use called SOAK devotions. "I want you to daily sit at my feet quietly so I can speak to you, so I can help you be conformed to the image of Christ, so you become better at representing me."
He'll give you an intentional missional village, a small group of people that'll be real about this stuff. Not a people that are perfect, not a people that can, like, pretend the storms of life aren't there. They know they're all there, but they found a peace inside the days and inside the storm. And then these things, our family gatherings, they're there as a tool, a resource for you to help you stay on the journey of being conformed to the image of Christ and keeping your mind at rest.
It's very, very simple. Very simple and, as I said, I'm a little bit embarrassed that I'm sharing about it, because I've known about it since donkey's years, but this is the first time I've actually just, "I am going to focus on this and see what happens." And I'll just, uh, let you know how it goes. So your life depends on you getting first things first.
If you get God first in the equation, and your mind is securely fixed on him and at peace, your mind will be at rest, and you will be a lot more productive in that productive second half of the day than the first half. So but if you don't get the rest at the start, and you don't surrender the flight plan to him, and then you get up and start scrambling in the morning, it's gonna be a mess and you're just gonna end up exhausted at the end of the day.
So have a crack, see what you think, see if it works for you. I would be really interested in your feedback on it. But, um, the, the key thing is that you have to have a relationship with Christ. That's where it starts. If you don't have a relationship with Christ, you're never gonna be able to figure this out.
I, you know, I say it quite often, I- my mind was literally obliterated by the time I came to faith in Christ. And my, my, my journey with him was, "Here's my life. If you can do anything with it, it's yours, 'cause I've completely destroyed it." And then over time, he said, "I will rebuild you. I'll show you." Now, I didn't realize at that point in time, at 21, that it would take 40 years to do that.
I, I thought I could just fix myself up in six months, but obviously I was a lot worse shape than I realized. But the point is, I wouldn't be doing what I'm doing today if not for that initial sta- that initial stand to say, "Lord, I'm gonna surrender my life to you. I am gonna surrender it to you I'm gonna stop trying to fix myself and I'm gonna start trusting you.
What is that about? It's about positioning your mind on Christ. And any area of your life that's not been surrendered, you're gonna have a mind that's spinning around in existence. But as soon as you surrender it, now your mind is settled on it, now you're focused again. And now on, into that area comes more peace and more peace.
It's not something you have to fix yourself and make it happen, it's something that you almost kinda like relax into. And so if you have never surrendered your life to Christ, you guys online, talk to your host there. But if you've got someone in here, there's, over in the corner there, we've got a little diagram.
It's called the Three Circles. It's the Gospel presentation. Ask someone to say, "Could you come talk to me about that?" 'Cause that's the way you s- you actually develop and gain and maintain a relationship with Christ for yourself. That's the way it starts. And it's, it doesn't happen in one thing. It's not like suddenly, boom, your whole life has changed.
No. Your security is changed because now you're following Christ, but your life, it takes a while to catch up "cause of all the traditions and all the stuff that we have that we need to let go of and surrender to Him. So first things first, your life depends upon it, the quality of your life, and your mind is desperate for it.
And when you get this right, things will start to make sense and things will start to settle. Let's pray together. Father, I just thank you, uh, for the way that you've led me through this. I'm, as I said, I'm a little bit embarrassed that it's taken me so long to actually apply this. But Lord, there's something about the rhythm of the garden.
There's something about the rhythm that you would meet with Adam in the cool of the day, and you would just talk with him, and you walk with him, and you'd probably discuss what the next day's gonna look like, and he might add some goals, you had some goals, and then, then the activity. Afterwards, he would wake and the activity would all happen.
Lord, there's something in there that our, us contemporary people now have kind of lost. It's a rhythm. So my prayer is, Lord, that we would help us to fix our minds on you, get back to you- Let the full weight of everything in our mind rest upon you. So we stop trying to fix it and we say, "Lord, can you untangle this while I sleep?
Can you untangle this and can you figure this out so that my flight plan tomorrow is a lot more stable than what it was today?" And Holy Spirit, I pray for people that are struggling, particularly with the area of depression. I know there's a, a number. Lord, that in this process, that you would meet them, you would meet them, and you would let them know that it's okay.
Sometimes we get a bit freaked out because, "Oh, well, I gotta take medication for this." Medication and following Jesus and resting your mind and, and they're not in, uh, not in, uh... What's the word? They're not in conflict with each other. Lord, they're just, they're part of it. The medication stuff and the things that we need to do, they handle the crisis moment, but the background is getting our mind back fixed in the point of rest.
And the more we can get our mind fixed as a point of rest on you, the less the other stuff will be required. So Holy Spirit, I ask that you would do a work, and you would lead us, and you would guide us, and I thank you in Jesus' name.