False Narratives

Hey, this is Bernie Dake. Due to the current events impacting our friends and family all over the world, we would like to share a special message from Salvation Army Officer, Commissioner Willis Howell, before we begin today's episode.

Hi friends, Willis Howell here. I just want to have a quick word with the soldiers, the employees, the friends of the Salvation Army in the Southern United States. I can imagine you're likely feeling concerned, perhaps even a little fearful in these present uncertain days. Now on one hand, worry is a natural human reaction when we face unusual circumstances like this current pandemic. But on the other hand, for those of us who have grounded our faith in Jesus Christ, we have another choice. Jesus invites us to cast our cares, our concerns, our worries on Him that He might carry them for us. Now please don't hear me say that we should be careless in what we do, how we conduct ourselves, or the choices we make.

No, we should follow all the precautions the experts and the state officials advise. But let's do it as people of faith, not as those who follow fear. You'll want to know that we have an active task force here at our territorial headquarters keeping up to date on the very latest information and developments regarding COVID-19 so we can respond in ways that will protect our soldiers, our workers, and our clients in order to support our service to our communities and enhance our overall mission.

We're in touch with state and federal outlets and personnel who are helping to guide us in our response. As we navigate our way through these next weeks, maybe even months, I would encourage all of you to find comfort and strength in prayer. Remind yourself and those around you of who God is and how He has helped in the past.

Focus on His strength, His character, His promise, His power. God can handle anything, including this situation which now affects our communities and our world. I also ask that you join me in taking every opportunity to be the hands and feet of Christ within your neighborhoods. There's no better time than this to leave an indelible Christ-like mark on those around us. What a rich opportunity this is, friends.

Let's seize it. Let's use this time to find new ways to carefully and prayerfully reach out and meet the unique needs around us in Jesus' name. As we're told in 1 Corinthians 16, stay alert, stand firm, show courage, be strong, and whatever you do, do it in love. I pray for God to bless you and to keep you and your family safe as you minister in His name to your community.

Thanks so much. Welcome back, everybody, to Wonderful Words of Life with our new host, Major Cheryl Gillum. Hey, everyone.

And I am Bernie Dake. We are happy that you have joined us. Happy first day of spring. And I hope that this episode finds you somewhere warm and beautiful. We started a new series last week with Ken and Amy Argott. And in this series, we're revisiting the topic of mental health. I think that the most powerful thing about this series is that we can talk about mental health all day long. But here, we have two Salvation Army officers being incredibly, incredibly vulnerable in sharing their own testimony and their own battle. This week, the Argots are going to be discussing the anxiety triggers that come from false narratives. When we assume what other people are thinking, when we jump to conclusions, we can often spiral out of control triggered by events or presumptions that may not even be true.

Right. So if you are struggling with depression or anxiety, we really want to encourage you to speak with someone. You can reach out to your local church or the Salvation Army. They would love to help. But if you're experiencing a crisis and need to speak with someone immediately, we want you to call 1-800-273-8255. That's 1-800-273-TALK. And let us know how we can help or how we can pray for you.

Send us an email at radio at uss.salvationarmy.org or call 1-800-229-9965. In our doubt. In division. In our pain. In rejection. Circumstances often dictate their own narrative. And we start to buy into that narrative that Satan might even be persuading us. And we start to believe things that aren't really true. Things like, so I said something to somebody or I made a decision and now they're mad at me and they won't ever speak to me again or things like that, when that may or may not even be true.

They might have forgotten about it the next day. So false narratives are those narratives that we just think, you know, everything is overwhelming and will never get any better. We see that in our prophets. And especially today, we're going to be referring to Elijah and the circumstance that he found himself in.

So he definitely had a false narrative going on with him. Yeah, it's really weird because Elijah, if you remember, he's on top of Mount Carmel and he's having the contest with the prophets of Baal and God, you know, shows up in a huge way. And you would think at this point that Elijah is, hey, this, you know, God is great and everything's going right. But like immediately after that in 1 Kings 19, if you were looking in verse 3, it says, Elijah was afraid and ran for his life.

When he came to Beersheba in Judah, he left his servant there. And while he himself went another day's journey into the desert, came to a broom tree, sat under it and prayed that he might die. I've had it, Lord. He said, you've had those experiences, right? Yeah. I don't know that I particularly want it to die, but I want it to say, okay, there has got to be another way.

I, you know, no, I don't want to die, but I don't want to continue on this journey that I'm on there. It's got to be an open door, open window somewhere. Yeah. Every Monday morning they say pastors resign, you know, and so many times, even we found ourselves in the salvation army every once in a while clicking on, are there other opportunities maybe? You know, like you, I mean, we have really bad weeks no matter what job you're in and you're always thinking that maybe the grass is green or somewhere else.

Yes. I was just thinking the same thing. And then a dear friend of mine posted on Facebook at one point, thinking about the grass is greener on the other side. Well, start watering the grass on your side and then it becomes green once again.

So finding truth about myself, what truth is there about myself in this circumstance that maybe I need to take a deeper look at or bring people alongside of me that can coach me into helping me water my grass? Yeah. The, what's interesting after that, once he says that he falls asleep and an angel touches him, allows him to eat. So he's again, miraculously receiving food from angels.

And then he goes 40 days and 40 nights into the desert and then goes in, hides in a cave at Mount Horeb, which is also Mount Sinai, the original place of Israel and just goes hides out there and just wants to die. And I think about so many times when we face adversity, we just start ruminating over stuff and that it's just going to keep getting bad and worse. Yeah. And whenever you say the word ruminating, I think of a cow, eating the same thing over and over and over again. And yeah, don't we do that? We just eat it. We eat the scenario over and over again. I hope nobody's eating because you're regurgitating your own vomit, right? Maybe that wasn't the best analogy, but it's, yeah.

That's a great analogy of that we start chewing on our own vomit and the vomit of other people that they've placed on us and we start believing all this stuff. But that's where Elijah is. He's hiding in this cave. He goes out looking for God and he has earthquakes and strong winds and God is not in any of those.

And then a still small voice speaks to him and says, Elijah, what are you doing here? Well, I'm thinking about all the stuff that's bad and Jezebel's out to get me and my church board doesn't like me and my boss's problem. It's a safe place for him. Yes.

It's a very safe place for him. Like getting out of bed sometimes or I'm just going to call into work today just because I feel terrible. I feel terrible.

Mental health day. Right. But sometimes that's not the place to be. I felt terrible this morning.

You knew that. And as we talked in the car here, I was reminded about that if somebody can learn from the stuff that I go through and you tell me I ruminate all the time, why are you still worried about that? If somebody can get help from that, then it makes me feel better getting up in the morning and being able to deliver that news.

It doesn't mean that it goes away, but we kind of face it in a different way. And interestingly, what the Lord says to Elijah is go back the way you came. Go back to where you were. I'm not moving you. I'm not taking you away from the circumstances.

I want you to go back to where you were. He says, anoint Hazael, the king of Aram, anoint Jehu, the king of Israel, and anoint Elisha, who is actually going to succeed you as prophet, because there's 7,000 in all of Israel who have not bowed down to Baal. And this is where the whole thing about false narrative, right, is that we believe we're the only one.

In fact, that's what Elijah says. I'm the only one left who's actually serving you. And so many times when we, as leaders, might even make a decision and we feel like the whole congregation must be mad at us, or we make a decision at work and maybe all of our coworkers are mad at us, usually it's the vocal 0.5% that may be mad at you, but people understand.

And there's other people who were actually just waiting for you to stand up and say that and are actually more respectful for you now because you made that difficult decision. Next week, we're going to find ourselves by the rivers of Babylon and with our prophet Jeremiah and looking at patience one foot at a time. Don't make a decision when you're under stress, what it looks like when you're in a valley, and how to lift your eyes up to our Father.

See you next week. The Salvation Army's mission, Doing the Most Good, means helping people with material and spiritual needs. You become a part of this mission every time you give to the Salvation Army. Visit salvationarmyusa.org to offer your support.

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