Psalm 31:12-13
I am forgotten as a dead man out of mind: I am like a broken vessel. For I have heard the slander of many: fear was on every side: while they took counsel together against me, they devised to take away my life.
The elemental fact is that immobility affects our minds in a number of ways.
· Immobility affects the relationships that you have had by severing them
· Immobility causes a decrease in motivation to learn
· Immobility causes a decrease in learning new things
· Immobility decreases the retention
· Immobility throws problem solving out the window
· And perhaps most insidious is the loss of ability to make good judgments because the world is limited to the place where you are, it causes you to lose the ability to discriminate from good relationships, from good judgment.
It is amazing that when we pull back into our shells that we think that we are harming no one, and yet in this cocooned state, we are slowly and surely killing ourselves. We kid ourselves to think that we are an island that survives at our whim. It is in the dark recesses of life that we find ourselves withdrawing from a dark world, and yet there is a deeper darkness that happens when we find in our own minds a place of total retreat.
We were made to go into the world; yet not to BE of the world. There is a definite line that if we retreat back into our shells that we will never accomplish the task we have been set out to do. If we remain in the confines of our “Pentecostal homes, our Pentecostal cars, our Pentecostal places of society” we are drastically missing the Great Commission of going forth.
If we sit around all day in the confines of our homes, caught up in the business of church we will slowly but surely find ourselves saying.“I’m Losing My Mind.”
David was in a place of great brokenness of spirit in the thirty first Psalm. He has been assaulted and finds himself in a place where he is so forgotten that he placed himself amongst those who were dead. David had obviously retreated, whether it was in the confines of the palace, or even the confines of his mind, that he sees himself as one that is dead.
David, that transparent man that was a man after God’s own heart, would reveal to us the raw emotions of an anguished soul. It is in the places of darkness that we retreat and find ourselves. David is a lot more transparent than we are.
Either way, we find David at a point in his life that is pushing him into a cave. It is at these points that danger presents itself. It is insidious, because it is so unexpected to find that the enemy sometimes is our own minds. We face a giant that lay not at the door, but inside the room that we live in. There are significant problems with dwelling in the cave, in the isolated rooms of our minds.
The Expectation of the Future is Darkened
Of the things that are a problems, the first is that our future is darkened.
Understand that I am not negating the past; but if we live there, we are relics of a bygone age, waiting for death. The present is our place of great struggle, and it is the realm of miracles, signs and wonders. But the future is our greatest hope, and if we lose it, we have lost it all.
The future serves as the greatest beacon of our lives. I can’t live in the past victories- to do so is to live for what happened yesterday. I can gathered strength from yesterday, but the truth that is established in the past must be brought into the present or else we have a dead God.
The future is where I find my greatest strength, because today is the placed where I can become mired into and it is where I will find defeat.
It is in this context that I introduce the first, deadly attribute of immobility. My perception of the future is much darkened if I allow myself to get caught in the trap of immobility.
The Bible is clear about the effects of immobility-
The Ephesians were warned of the impending effects of understanding the times and seasons wind up alienated from God
Perception of the times is essential to life
Moses spent 40 years in the wilderness that was marked by relative Biblical silence, thought his usefulness had ended, he was blinded to the future.
Abraham traveled for extended periods of time without hearing the voice of God, and I am sure that it felt like he had been locked out of a relationship with God.
When my circumstance demands that I retreat, I cannot allow myself to stay in the condition of self imposed exile, or my perception of the future begins to overwhelm my entire outlook on life.
Whoever said that perception is reality came pretty close to the truth. . .at least in the confines of our minds.
We can only understand our world and the things in it through the eyes, the ears, the skin, tasting and the sense of smell. If my world is confined to the smallness of a fortress of offence, then I will understand only through the musty walls of self deception. As the prophet called out to God in II Kings, after all of the thunder, lightning and fire, God asked him a probing question.
I Kings 19:13 And it was so, when Elijah heard it, that he wrapped his face in his mantle, and went out, and stood in the entering in of the cave. And, behold, there came a voice unto him, and said, What doest thou here, Elijah?
What are you doing in a cave? It was in a cave that had provided a place of refuge, but had become a place of self deception. His perception of the future had been clouded by his present circumstance.
His view of the future had been darkened by immobility. In fact, it had caused him to be driven partially out of his mind.
The Perception of the Present is Limited
There are a times in our life that we find that the things of today can cause us to temporarily loosen our grip on reality. Think that you are exempt? When the ship starts rocking on the sea, don’t tell me that you don’t think for a moment that you are going to lose your mind?
Jesus will lead you into storms that you cannot manage on your own, notwithstanding the toughness of your soul. He did so in the Book of Matthew.
Matthew 8:22-25 But Jesus said unto him, Follow me; and let the dead bury their dead. And when he was entered into a ship, his disciples followed him. And, behold, there arose a great tempest in the sea, insomuch that the ship was covered with the waves: but he was asleep. And his disciples came to him, and awoke him, saying, Lord, save us: we perish.
The disciples were lead into the ship and Jesus promptly went to sleep. Must have been something about the rain on the deck that helped rock him to sleep. The small ship had become a place of immobility, weirdly enough. How can you say that? By the disciples reply. . .if you don’t arouse yourself we are going to die in this tiny ship. We are confined by the sides of this boat.
Some of you have walked in places where that you knew Jesus had led you to, and all you found was a storm and a sleeping Jesus. The problems of perception in a storm is closely related to the place from which you weather the storm
If you are weathering a hurricane from about 100 miles from the coast, it is a lot different than watching it from the perspective that the coast gives. It is easy to forget that Jesus led you onto the ship, and more importantly, he is still right beside you.
But there are other hazards of immobility, that cause a loss of perception
· Demas suffered from spiritual immobility that wound up manifesting itself as a love for the present world.
· Diotrephes loved preeminence and wound up obscuring his sight, so that he spoke against the beloved John
Destruction of our ability to perceive the present will cause death. We spend all of our time in the present. . . and perception is paramount.
Time hangs heavy when the perception of the present is faulty.
Thankfully, we need to remember that Jesus led us here, and when our perception is limited because of our weak faith, call on Him as his perception is never off.
My Interactions with Others is Closed Off
Not long ago, a man had to be hauled out of his house due to his morbid obesity. He weighed so much that he could not stand on his own power. His world was that single room and bed that he lay in. The most pathetic part of the whole thing was the fact that someone had to bring him the enormous amounts of food that he consumed. He was being killed by the perceived kindness of others.
When my interactions are so controlled, I lose any ability to have perspective on the situations of life. If I am being fed a steady stream of negative things by my circle of friends, then I am as bloated with deception as the man was with obesity. It is a sickness that tends to feed on itself.
Peter had a way of getting to the crux of a matter pretty quickly, and he was on target when he said that
IIPeter 2:22 But it is happened unto them according to the true proverb, The dog is turned to his own vomit again; and the sow that was washed to her wallowing in the mire.
He was obviously referring the fact that it is natural for these animals to find themselves right back in the place where they started. It is true that there are besetting sins, and you must be very wary that you don’t return to the things that gave occasion for you to sin in the past.
But when we find ourselves closed in, unwilling to reach out to those perhaps that can help us most. It is in this confined world that our problems overwhelm any solution that we might otherwise be able to secure.
· Daniel was in such a place when he flung open his window to pray, and yet from the pit of lions, he was able to find rescue
· Three Hebrew boys found rescue in the midst of a burning fiery furnace
· John found rescue on an Isle of Patmos
· Job found rescue when he was reduced to just him and God
· It was in the lonely confines of a Mamartine prison cell that Paul gives us the epistles
There is a table in the wilderness David. . . There is a table in the wilderness of self imposed solitude that is deadly.
David was able to pull himself up with the help of those around him and a God that cared for him. He ends that chapter of woe by saying these things-
Psalm 31:22-24 For I said in my haste, I am cut off from before thine eyes: nevertheless thou heardest the voice of my supplications when I cried unto thee. O love the LORD, all ye his saints: for the LORD preserveth the faithful, and plentifully rewardeth the proud doer. Be of good courage, and he shall strengthen your heart, all ye that hope in the LORD.
When you get to the bottom of your barrel, if there is no other one to strengthen your hand, he will strengthen your heart.
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