Rack, Shack and Benny

I recently got thrown into a bit of a tailspin.

Something that I had come to depend on as a loyal safety net was suddenly pulled from me and I felt a bit as though I was flailing.

As I have discovered in the past, if I focused on the loss or the stir of trouble, I quickly became sick to my stomach with anxiety. But, rejoice! If I focused on God and the belief of His sovereignty, peace remained.

I had to do this more than once, more than 10 times, really. Then I guess I just did it so much that the fear got tired of trying and stayed away!

This morning as I was praying, I found myself thinking about Rack, Shack and Benny.

Rack, Shack and Benny; otherwise known as Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego (Daniel 3).

I was thinking of their amazing story, of their total commitment to God: to refuse to bow down to King Nebuchadnezzar's god and thereby be thrown into (and saved from) the fiery furnace.

And I began putting myself in their shoes.......would I have been able to take that same bold stance for God? Would I have rather been thrown into the furnace than bow before another? Would I have gotten to experience the wonder of not getting burned by the fire?

Tragically, this is what came to my mind: "Well, I could do that if I was in the right frame of mind."

I began to try to decipher why that was my first reaction. After all, what does that mean? To be in the 'right frame of mind'?

It basically all came down to the fact that sometimes I feel close enough to God to risk anything for Him and obey Him no matter what He asks. Other times, our relationship isn't as easy or simple for me to trust.

More than anything, that passing thought gave me good reason to evaluate what it would take to remain in that so-called 'right frame of mind'. I don't have the entirety of my relationship with God figured out in statistics or black and white obviousness, but I do know that I want to consistently remain in the frame of mind that I would rather die than disown or disobey Him. I want to be a Rack, Shack and Benny compadre.

One of the first verses that I remember learning was 2 Timothy 1:7: "For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind." I always gravitated to this verse because fear has always been a struggle of mine and it reminds me that fear is not what God wants for me. He wants me to be "of sound mind".

I remember being a bit disillusioned however, upon reading the NIV: "For the Spirit God gave us does not make us timid but gives us power, love and self-discipline." Self-discipline? Can't I have a sound mind instead? Trade-sies?

About a month ago I was thinking about this verse and why it was translated in different versions as "sound mind" and "self-discipline". What is the similarity that exists between them?

Perhaps, just maybe.........sound mind = self-discipline.

Perhaps, just maybe, we often come to be of sound mind through self-discipline - the self-discipline of training our minds to be sound.

This was truly revelatory to me, like two puzzle pieces fitting together.

It is pretty clear that Rack, Shack and Benny would not have been able to choose what they did and see a miracle of God if they had been operating in fear, rather than from a trifecta of soundness. If they had been focusing on the fire or their fear of being burned, they most likely would have acted to appease King Nebuchadnezzar. But they were focused on God and knew that He was bigger than the issue they were facing. This gave them the sound minds they needed to know that whatever happened, they could trust God.

For people like me, a sound mind is not a trait that comes naturally. Rather, it is something that I need to work hard to cultivate in myself because that is what God wants me, as His follower, to have.

The cultivating comes by recognizing fearful and anxious thoughts and replacing them with the word of God; by spending more time thinking about God's character and love than about myself or my situation.

"Truth is never at the mercy of facts. Facts say I feel lonely and afraid. Truth says, 'I will never leave you nor forsake you'." - Damon Thompson

I'm still learning. And sometimes I have to choose to focus on God 10-plus times before the anxious thoughts get tired and give up.

But there is a sound mind to be had and I'm going to get it.