May The Force Be With You

One of my boys was feeling a little melancholy the other evening. He had had a couple of days off from school, due to being sick and running a high temperature, and he was feeling nervous to go back. He couldn't quite explain his thoughts or feelings, he just felt a bit sad and teary and his head was full of sad thinking. He has felt like this before, where his mind has doubted our love, and it all just 'feels sad', even though he's actually pretty secure in our love for him. How often do I doubt my Father in Heaven's love, without reason to?

So we have a new strategy when his thoughts are a bit negative and glum; we've combined the wisdom of The Bible with the imagery of Star Wars, as you do. After all, his name is an Old Testament prophet and a Jedi Knight....The force is strong with this one!

We looked at the second part of 2 Corinthians 10v5;

"We pull down every proud obstacle that is raised against the knowledge of God; we take every thought captive and make it obey Christ".

 



To take something captive, suggests that it is an actual 'action' we need to do, not just something which happens. So we wondered where we could lock these negative thoughts up; where there was a good prison. And we decided that Jabba the Hutt's palace was a good place to keep something locked up. So that's what we do, we grab each of these untrue thoughts and we shove them in Jabba's captivity.

 

The funny element tends to help break him out of his melancholy. And it helps our very visual boy, see these thoughts being locked up. Now I'm aware that this verse is actually about Paul defending God and the arguments which were being raised against Him, and I have explained this to my son. He has a few friends at school who don't think God is real, so he does know what this verse means. But I think it is important to train him to take both kinds of thoughts captive.

 

We then encourage our boy to fill his mind with things "which are good and that deserve praise: things that are true, noble, right, pure, lovely, and honourable" as it suggests in Philippians 4. In other words, we encourage him to think about God before he sleeps, to think about all the good things God has done for him and how much God loves him, and we pray for God's help. I needed to do this myself this week. I found myself dwelling in untruths, and I was left feeling glum and full of self pity as a result. So I wrote a page of Truths about God in my journal; He is my hiding place, my strength, my refuge etc and it helped shift my thoughts off of me and back to my Heavenly Father's love, Jesus' victory on the cross, and the awesome power of the Holy Spirit at work in me, which afterall, is always going to be the best Force to have with me.

See what I did there?!