Wisdom for When You Want to Check Out

Hey, I have a question for you. Do you ever wish you could shut your mind off or check out? You know, our mind is a powerful gift from God, but sometimes, I just wish I could get it to calm down and be quiet. Whether it's stress from work or worries about relationships that keep us awake at night, we all have endless thoughts in our heads, and our minds can overwhelm us.

And often, what's going on in our minds is worse than what's actually happening to us in real life. Sometimes, I think my mind is my worst enemy. I'm convinced that a lot of people's bad habits are actually an attempt to check out and calm their minds.

There's nothing wrong with taking a break and chilling out. But when our desire to check out gets out of control, it can turn into a real problem. King Solomon clearly had a powerful mind, and you can tell he was a thinker.

He addressed this challenge of wanting to check out and numb our minds in Ecclesiastes 2, 1 to 3, when he says, "I said to myself, come now. I will test you with pleasure to find out what is good." But that also proved to be meaningless. Laughter, I said, is madness.

And what does pleasure accomplish? I tried cheering myself with wine and embracing folly. My mind's still guiding me with wisdom. I wanted to see what was good for people to do under the heavens during the few days of their lives.

We can all relate to looking for pleasure or laughter to calm ourselves. I think that's why we binge-watch certain TV shows, and sometimes, we rely a little too heavily on substances like drugs or alcohol that we use to take the edge off. And I get it.

Some people live in really hard, challenging situations, and they're surrounded by so much sadness or negativity that it weighs heavy on our minds. But Ecclesiastes is a book about having the proper perspective on life. I think what King Solomon is trying to say is that checking out and numbing yourself really won't solve any of the problems.

The answers only come when we look for God in the discomfort of life under the sun. Wisdom is applying knowledge in the right way. So when you want to check out or numb yourself or find yourself doing it a lot, the wise thing to ask is, "Is there something I'm trying to avoid right now?" because we tend to run from things that make us uncomfortable.

But typically, it's the things we're trying to avoid that we actually need to face. And when we do, even if it's difficult, I believe God steps in with his grace. The act of turning and facing the thing actually makes the challenge seem less big. Our desire to check out is actually something we can use to help us gain perspective on God's work in our lives and what he wants to do.

So, I pray that we will not avoid our thoughts or negative feelings but instead use them to gain wisdom about God's ongoing work. He's at work. You can have confidence in that.

Photo Credit: SWN Design