This is an excerpt from Pastor Steven Furtick’s book Crash the Chatterbox that disproves lies and half truths all of us are enticed to believe about ourselves. Pastor Furtick, lead pastor of Elevation Church, writes:
“We live in a world full of chatter. Lies of condemnation, fear, insecurity, and discouragement bombard our minds every day. All the people around you are fighting off their own chatterboxes.”
Furtick continues: “I wake up every day to the crow of the chatterbox. The thoughts are flying so fast now that I can’t keep track, much less sort them out and put them where they belong. Thinking about these thoughts at all only seems to feed them. That’s why they keep overpowering me, because I keep feeding them. This is stupid. I’m being stupid.”
“A burned out light bulb has turned into a mini-midmorning meltdown in my mind, and I can’t find the switch to shut it off. The meltdown, I mean, not the light bulb.”
“So I’m standing in the shower, and the light bulb is out, and it’s like the sky is falling. As soon as I stepped into the shower, I noticed, for the third time, that the middle bulb was out over the sink on the other side of the bathroom. Now that I’m in the shower, stranded, phoneless, how am I going to put in Evernote that the light bulb is out? With my pathetic attention span, what are the chances I’ll remember to replace the light bulb after I get out?”
“I definitely don’t have time to change the light bulb – I’m already going to be ten minutes late for this meeting. If there’s no traffic. “I’m always running late for meetings. I’m a late person. I think of Pastor Mickey who said, ‘He who runs from God in the morning will scarce find Him throughout the day.‘ Either way, God is gone for the day, and it’s not even 9:00 am. And now I’m running twelve minutes late, and the light bulb is still out.”
“The chatter will continue to race through my mind until I decide to downshift and put things back in perspective: calm down Furtick. It’s. Just. A. Lightbulb.”
“Just like that, if only for a split second, the chatterbox gives way Unfortunately, it won’t be long until the chatterbox sounds off again. Probably next time about something much more serious than a light bulb. So much doubt, panic, raw impulse, and bogus conjecture stream through my mind. My soul sometimes feels like a Twitter feed where I’m following a million of the most annoying people ever, and I cant find the Unfollow Button.”
“But the battle isn’t ours to fight alone.”
“God is faithful to speak too. His voice rises from the pages of His Word, which is the exact expression of His will. He speaks, not only on Sundays mornings in the sanctuary, but also in the stillness of His works scattered across the night skies. His Spirit speaks with promptings that are not audible – often they are much louder than that – and always in perfect harmony with the Scriptures and always resounding with perfect wisdom. God has sent reminders to confirm that He has perfectly designed me and totally enabled me for everything He’s called me to do. God has given each of us the ability to choose the dialogue we believe and respond to.”
“Our choice is that we can crash the chatterbox when we hear God’s voice above all the others, or we can continue to be bombarded with lies we are tempted to believe about ourselves.”
Me? I chose to crash the chatterbox.