It's Not You

Show me a woman who doesn't feel overly guilty all of the time and I'll show you a flying elephant. For me, the battle is all in my mind, and maybe you're the same way. I think thoughts that I don't think I should think (don't I have a great vocabulary?) and then I feel guilty for thinking those thoughts.

Why can't I have a pure mind, God? I begged to know just yesterday. I must be a terrible person if I'm always thinking this way.

Then I began to wonder if I'll ever have a truly pure mind.

Then I began to wonder if there are any people who have truly pure minds.

Then I got very disheartened.

Then I got on my knees and opened my Bible and read the first thing my eyes fell upon.

"Don’t urge me to leave you or to turn back from you. Where you go I will go, and where you stay I will stay..."

"Gee, thanks, God," I thought, "Ruth, of all people- she was practically flawless. That really helps."

He smiled at me.

Then He asked me, "What do you think she was thinking when she said that?"

"She was incredibly confident in every way, of course," I answered.

He just looked at me for a minute.

"....at least, I think so...." I looked back.

"Wait a minute!" the light suddenly dawned. "I'll bet she was scared out of her wits!"

Imagine, if you will, Naomi and Ruth. Orpah already left, weeping as she walks back down the long road home. Ruth trembles as she begins to wonder what she should do. She could return to Moab, back to the life she had always known and the family she loved. But something in her spirit knew that her destiny lay in Judah. Just as she is about to speak up and tell Naomi that she will continue to travel with her, Naomi speaks.

"Return home, Ruth!" she cries, looking back at Orpah and gesturing as if to say, "You ought to follow her example."

"Do it, Ruth," the enemy (who we always just happen to forget about) whispers. "You know what you want."

Then another Voice speaks. "Follow Me. Speak, Ruth. Silence the enemy. Speak what I have for you to say. Speak, Darling. Speak."

"Do not," Ruth stumbles over her words as she whispers, "do not persuade me to leave you, Naomi..."

Do you realize that the evil thoughts in your mind are not your own? I am constantly frustrated with myself and the thoughts in my head instead of using the authority Jesus has given me to get rid of the enemy who I unknowingly allow to speak to me day in and day out. I struggle with guilt and worry because I blame myself for the thoughts that he plagues me with.

Ruth didn't become David's great-grandmother because she was she never worried or doubted, but because she was willing to ignore the voice of the enemy and silence it with her own. It wasn't that she never had an impure thought, but that she didn't let them have any authority over her. She didn't earn a place in the lineage of the Savior of the human race because she was confident with herself, but because she was confident in the beckoning, beautiful voice of her God and she followed it.

(And, just in case you know a woman understands this already, here's this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=07cDZlUgGZo&feature=related)