While traveling in Europe, we toured many grand old Victorian homes with rooms that were wallpapered in a cacophonous barrage of dissonant textures, patterns and colors.
It assaulted our senses and affected us emotionally. Wallpaper can make or break a room’s décor.
Have you ever laid in bed alone late at night and listened carefully to your “resting” thoughts?
Do they seem to run on an automatic loop something like the movie Groundhog Day? Are they often negative, critical, accusing, fear-based and maddeningly consistent over time?
I think of this phenomenon as a kind of “wallpaper” in my mind that is always there regardless of what I am doing outwardly.
Annoyingly, in idle moments my mind seems to be “spring-loaded” to the “wallpaper position.”
When such bad mental wallpaper is left unaddressed, anxiety and depression are bound to follow in lockstep.
The key to breaking this cycle is to change the wallpaper, and God’s word paired with God’s Holy Spirit is the best way to do it.
Changing Your Mindset
My personal wallpaper has been cluttered with things like regrets — the endless woulda, coulda, shouldas of my life.
There are also ghosts of bad decisions, broken relationships, missed opportunities, financial setbacks, etc.
Add to this collection voices from my past reminding me of being told by authority figures that I was a loser, slow, dumb, lazy, good-for-nothing, etc. and my wallpaper sometimes seems smothering.
“For the mind set on the flesh is death, but the mind set on the Spirit is life and peace.”
Romans 8:6
In Romans 8:5-8, the Apostle Paul reminds us that it is our responsibility to silence all those voices and take hold of what God has to say about me. It’s a mindset thing:
“For those who are in accord with the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who are in accord with the Spirit, the things of the Spirit. For the mind set on the flesh is death, but the mind set on the Spirit is life and peace, because the mind set on the flesh is hostile toward God; for it does not subject itself to the law of God, for it is not even able to do so, and those who are in the flesh cannot please God.”
If you are a Christian and still tormented by bad wallpaper, remind yourself that, as written in 2 Corinthians 5:17, “… if anyone is in Christ, this person is a new creation; the old things passed away; behold, new things have come.”
That junk from your past has to do with the “old you,” and the old you died with Christ on the cross. See Galatians 2:20.
If you are born again, you are a new creature in Christ — and Jesus’ wallpaper is squeaky clean and filled with life and peace.
Now comes your part, from Colossians 3:1-4:
“Therefore, if you have been raised with Christ, keep seeking the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on the things that are above, not on the things that are on earth. For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ, who is our life, is revealed, then you also will be revealed with Him in glory.”
Your mental/spiritual wallpaper was methodically programmed over years and years.
You must now reprogram it with Christ’s help by completely changing your mindset — moving your mental focus from planet Earth to “… where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God” This a proactive, daily process of writing over your old wallpaper with the truth of God.
New Truth
In Hebrews 4:11-13, Scripture instructs: ”For the word of God is living and active, and sharper than any two-edged sword, even penetrating as far as the division of soul and spirit, of both joints and marrow, and able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart. And there is no creature hidden from His sight, but all things are open and laid bare to the eyes of Him to whom we must answer.”
Let the Word of God do the work for you. Let the Holy Spirit speak truth into your weary heart and don’t listen to those old scripts. Record over them!
How About You?
The psalmists wrote in Psalm 94:18-20:
“If I should say, ‘My foot has slipped,’
Your faithfulness, Lord, will support me.
When my anxious thoughts multiply within me,
Your comfort delights my soul.”
And in Psalm 139:23-24:
Search me, God, and know my heart;Put me to the test and know my anxious thoughts;
And see if there is any hurtful way in me,
And lead me in the everlasting way.”
Don’t let bad wallpaper rule your life! Write over it with good stuff.
4-1-1
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