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You’ve Got Mail

“You’ve got mail,” a familiar voice from yonder says. 26,274. Seriously! That’s the number of emails sitting comfortably in my inbox — taking up space, not to mention my valuable time. I know, I know, you think I’m kidding about that super-colossal out-of-control high number. But, sadly, I’m not.

Have you ever noticed that you can visit a website one time… one time, and bam, suddenly you’re their friend for life? You didn’t buy anything, you didn’t sign up for anything, nor did you leave unpaid items in your virtual shopping cart. A thought popped into your head, and on a whim you simply went there to look around. Or perhaps maybe you did buy a widget from that website… 10 years ago! To make matters worse, that rambunctious retailer went and told all their friendly affiliates how generous you are. Now you’re receiving deeply discounted limited-time offers from them as well. Share the wealth, that’s what they’re hoping for.

Every day I feel the friction while speed-reading through the multitudes of email. I get irritated when my precious time is consumed with trying to extract the important ones from the boat-load of junk. And here’s what I’ve noticed: Simply hitting the delete button doesn’t help. Tomorrow will be a new day with a few hundred more dazzling daily deals delivered to my inbox. In order to permanently stop the unwanted emails you must hit the “unsubscribe here” button. Even that will take more time than you’ve got. Often you will be redirected to a new page, probing your decision to opt-out through a plethora of questions. Then, just when you think you’ve severed the relationship for good, you’re notified that it may take up to 2 weeks for the emails to cease and desist. Say what? They can immediately sign you up, but it takes something just short of a court order to let you go! And even then, they are likely to send one more email notification reminding you that you’ve unsubscribed, and they’re hoping it was in error because they’re so sad to see you go. Unbelievable. So easy to jump onto their bandwagon, but so much time and effort to get back off.

Delete Ungodly Thoughts

That’s the way it is with our emotional mail too. The Spirit of God reminded me recently to guard against unwanted email in my mind. The enemy delivers tons of junk mail into our minds every day. It comes in the form of a negative or ungodly thought. In a weak moment we open his mail and begin to entertain that thought. If we do not immediately hit the “delete” button our brain will begin meditating on that thing. The moment we give mental assent to something, we’ve in essence visited that [virtual] website. The web address could be something like fear.com, revenge.org, sickness.net, pornography.edu, etc. There are millions of spiritual URL’s the devil will tempt us to visit in our minds, thoughts that are not from God. And when we allow those thoughts to linger long enough, we begin downloading unhealthy and harmful things into our mind.

Once we buy into that negative thought process, it’s amazing how they multiply — they beget more of the same. It’s just like going to a website on our computer and buying something. That becomes the open-door for that seller (and their marketing partners) to continue communicating with us, oftentimes, through an enormous amount of unwanted emails. Their aim is to continually keep their name, product, or services at the forefront of our mind and thoughts.

And so it is with Satan. If he can capture our attention and control our thoughts until we buy into his lies, it gives him an open-door to send more. For example: We meditate on one piece of mail sent from the demonic spirit of “anger” and before we know it his affiliate “bitterness” has emailed our mind. The junk mail piles up, making it more and more difficult to find the worthy messages [mail] from God.

Dear friend, here’s what I’ve learned: Don’t let your mind wander into that spiritually dangerous website in the first place! It’s so much easier putting that initial negative thought in the trash… unopened, than it is trying to “unsubscribe” after meditating for months on that piece of junk.

Think Positive

The National Science Foundation estimates that our brains produce as many as 50,000 – 70,000 thoughts per day, depending on how “deep” a thinker we are. Wow! That’s a whole lot of mail going into our minds. But even more mind-blowing than that is the disturbing conclusion that the vast majority of them, 70-80%, are negative or pure nonsense. Often, we’re dwelling on our pitiful past mistakes or stressing over an uncertain future. Only a minuscule amount of our thoughts are actually focused on what is truly important… the present! Be more mindful of the moment. The Bible gives us some great advice: “Forget about those things that are behind you” and “Don’t worry about tomorrow.” Begin to take control over your thought processes. Clear the clutter, think positive. Here’s a list of acceptable mail to meditate on: Whatever is true, noble, just, pure, lovely, of good report, anything of virtue, and anything praiseworthy (Phil. 4:8). If your emotional mail isn’t postmarked by one of these positive thoughts… unsubscribe, and return it to sender!

This week I’ve become more motivated than ever to clean up and monitor my mailbox — both on my iMac and in my mind!