Summer school ended a few weeks ago to my joy and only a couple of weeks remain of forty-hour work days at Lafarge. This whole summer has been one moment of cringing after another. Getting up to my alarm at 6:00 in the morning, I cringe. Pulling on my stiff boots-a result of being dried out from cement dust-and attempting to tie my fraying shoe laces, I cringe. Plopping down into my dirty car seat and breathing in the aroma of sweat and dirt, I cringe. Pulling into the Lafarge parking lot and stepping out into the already eighty-degree, stale air, I cringe. Walking into the control room to discover my meaning and worth for the day, I cringe. Going about the daily business of working at a cement plant, I cringe and wish for the days to go by quicker. In the midst of this seemingly hopeless chain of events a little voice in the back of my head controls the levers and knobs in the motherboard that is my brain. The moment I wake up, it tells me I am doing something that defies the laws of comfort and happiness. It then pushes the cringe button which promptly tenses my muscles and sends chills of discomfort up my spine. This little voice in my head tells me all sorts of things about my life of school and work. It tells me how little fun I am having and how hard things are.
One day I realized two important things as I shoved my broom across the floor kicking up a plume of dust. These two realizations would change the way I looked at the hard things I had to do in life.
1. The voice in my head is wrong.
Point one’s simple reality threw me in a one hundred eighty degree direction. All of the sudden I realized that I could no longer listen to the voice that I had, no doubt, created. The voice was an instrument being used to destroy joy, hope, and meaning in my life, and putting in their place irritation, despair, and darkness.
2. I can talk to myself, using scripture, the Holy Spirit, and my own motherboard.
There is a part of a person that knows how to talk and reason. Yes, sometimes after listening to that bad, mouthy little voice one can begin to wonder what happened to reasoning. I know I have. But there definitely is a part of a person that can use reason and other sources to defy the little voice inside. This reasoning part of me really began to kick in as I was sweeping that fateful day. I remember thinking about how miserable I felt pushing a broom at seven in the morning when I could be in bed. All of the sudden the little voice was drowned out by reason. I began thinking of Job. He had everything going for him. He had a full family, a house, prosperity flowing from every corner of his property. Then, in one day it was all taken from him. And yet, for a while, he was joyful and did not let the despair of his situation overtake him. There I was complaining about my situation listening to an immature voice when I had a family, a home, and prosperity (in the form of friends and Christ). But one thing stood out more than those things. The very thing I was complaining about (work) was the very thing with which God had blessed me. The job I dreaded and hated so much was the financial means I had prayed about years before. Very soon the little evil voice in my head had disappeared as, through scripture and the holey spirit, I was talked out of the darkness and despair I was experiencing.
Have you ever seen those cartoons with the angel and devil on either shoulder of a character who is about to make a choice? His face contorted into fear or confusion as he tries to make a decision, he looks from one shoulder and then to another as he listens to the voice of reason and the voice of desire. The devil, or one of his minions, sits on one shoulder trying to make the character feel good about doing something wrong. He usually makes enticing points and can sometimes make the person feel bad about his current state. An angel, usually on the right shoulder, tries to prove the opposite point. He doesn’t necessarily try to entice the character but instead insists he does the right thing, whether it benefits himself or not. However ridiculous this may sound, those two forces were what I faced that day while I swept and cleaned. On one shoulder was the voice telling me how bad my situation was and enticing me to hate my job and seek some form of comfort. On the other shoulder sat God, reason, scripture, and my own intellect. These told me to forbear with my job. They told me how good I had it compared to others. They told me how the very thing I hated was a very big blessing from the Lord.
The next time you are in a situation and that little voice begins to makes its little enticing speeches, blow it off your left shoulder, look to your right, resort to reason, and begin talking to yourself so the voice in your head doesn’t have a chance.
