You will always find what you are looking for

As part of my devotional time each morning I am currently re-reading Craig Groeschel's book Soul Detox: Clean Living in a Contaminated World. Let me share a paragraph that really touched me this morning.

You will always find what you are looking for. Think about the difference between two birds: a vulture and a hummingbird. Vultures soar high in the sky, looking and searching. What does a vulture find? Dead things. The ugly oversized bird doesn't stop until he finds lifeless, rotting road kill. Contrast the vulture to the tiny hummingbird. With wings flapping twenty beats a second, what does this small bird find? Not dead things and disgusting rancid meat, but instead, sweet, life-giving nectar. Daily each bird finds what he is looking for.

The same is true of each of us. We can always find thing to complain about, things that are negative in life, and things that don't go the way we wanted. Some people dwell on finding such things. Zig Ziglar used to say that some people go around looking for the bad as if there was a reward for finding it. Any of us can get locked into such negative thinking which can never help us live life as it was meant to be.

How does this happen? One way people get locked into negative thinking is by spending more time listening to the news than they spend reading the Bible. "If it bleeds, it leads" is the mantra of the news profession. Like vultures they fly through the sky seeking the ugly things in life to report. Yes, we are battling a pandemic that needs reporting. Yes, there are shootings and murders and ugly things out there. But, there are also many positive things happening in the world that never get covered. We don't hear about them because they are not considered newsworthy. If such things receive any mention at all it's in the last minute of the newscast after our minds have been filled with the other stories.

Another way this seeking the negative occurs is through the self-talk we do every day. Growing up we may have been given the seeds of negativity that were planted in our minds. Perhaps you were told you would never amount to anything, that you were dumb or unattractive. Maybe you were bullied by others. People who were supposed to protect you harmed you instead. Such seeds of negativity can be planted deep within a person. They produce thoughts in our minds that never seem to go away until we finally begin to believe them ourselves. We're not surprised when something doesn't go our way because we've convinced ourselves through our self-talk that we don't deserve good things to happen to us.

There's not space to cover any of what I'm about to say in detail, but let me make three suggestions.

1. Spend as much time reading the Scriptures as you do listening to the news. Yes, bad things do happen in the world, but remind yourself that God is still in charge. Read Philippians 4:7 every time you begin to feel overwhelmed by what is happening in the world.
2. Take control of your self-talk. Be aware of the negative things you speak into your own spirit and refuse to accept them. Again, the Bible has much to say about how God views you. Fill your mind with His words.
3. Pastors, this is not the time to preach a series through Lamentations. People are concerned and some are scared. They need to be reminded that God is with them, and those who do not know the Lord may be looking for something, or Someone, to become an anchor for their lives. Preach the Gospel, the greatest message of hope ever known to mankind! Help people find what they are really looking for in life.