“I hate the two-faced, but I love your clear-cut revelation. You’re my place of quiet retreat; I wait for your Word to renew me. Get out of my life, evildoers, so I can keep my God’s commands. Take my side as you promised, I’ll live then for sure. Don’t disappoint all my grand hopes. Stick with me and I’ll be all right, I’ll give total allegiance to your definitions of life. Expose all those who drift away from your sayings; their casual idolatry is lethal. You reject earth’s wicked as so much rubbish; therefore I lovingly embrace everything you say. I shiver in awe before you; your decisions leave me speechless with reverence” [Psalm 119:113-120].
The other day I went to Wal-Mart with my family; but as the automatic doors flew open, I hesitated to walk into what looked like a tornado of shopping carts, people and product. As a very visual person, I can sometimes get visually over-stimulated with everything that’s going on around me. I kind of want to shut down like a computer or maybe just go into sleep mode when I enter establishments such as these; it’s as if I know I’m going to be attacked by products saying, “I’m the best one. Pick me!” and get run over by a mom on a mission with her shopping cart as her weapon.
This is why I coined the phrase, “Wal-Mart brain” (Sorry Mr. Walton). Whenever my thoughts are in a whirl or simply too consumed, Wal-Mart brain comes on scene. I’ve noticed that a case of Wal-Mart brain seems to most often make its presence when I have not taken the time to find my place of quiet retreat, God.
Usually, I have no defense for all the shopping-cart-like-messages darting through my mind. You know the sound of metal carts crashing together after they have been stranded in a deserted parking lot. These carts have tons of messages for me like, “Don’t forget all you have to do today”, “You’re not Godly”, “You’re a failure”, “So-and-so doesn’t like you”, “You should be this size”, “You are not going to wear that, are you?”, “You don’t deserve anything good”, “You know they don’t really care about you”, “Are you sure you believe in God?”, “Why do you live for something that’s invisible?”, “Are you sure you are a Christian?”
I’m sure you get my point. Put simply, there’s a lot of junk flying around in our thoughts. I believe the passage above in Psalm 119 gives us a clue on how it is possible to transform our minds from chaos to calm. The answer lies in this verse, “You’re my place of quiet retreat; I wait for your Word to renew me.”
What does this look like realistically? Well, it’s finding a place outside or in your room where you can be alone. It’s sitting down and catching your breath between classes, or even hanging out with friends (at school, church, home or whatever it may be). It’s telling those fleeting thoughts to be quiet and having a copy of the Scriptures by your side. It’s opening up that book and reading God’s definitions of life. It’s waiting for those Words to be real in your mind and in your heart. Then, it’s applying them to your life. It’s calming your Wal-Mart life and finding the calm in Him for He is your place of quiet retreat.
