Immediate Mental Defeat

Immediate Mental Defeat

Defeat begins in the mind.  It is usually immediate and definitive.  Most ideas die within milliseconds of their birth.  Many people fail because they defeat themselves mentally.  First, they entertain creative thoughts about accomplishing their goals and dreams.  Then, instantly, they nurture notions about obstacles and possibilities of failure.  Unfortunately, they dwell on the negative rather than accentuating the positive.  In so doing, they immediately defeat themselves before even trying.

In the Tower of Babel story, the people were of one language and thus of one mind.  The biblical word, language, translates into border and shore.  Practically speaking, because they did face a language barrier, they enjoy clear and consistent communication, which enables them to achieve unity in thought and uniformity in action.  That clarity and unity empowers them to achieve anything that they imagine.  In Genesis 11:7, the author says of the builders of the Tower of Babel, “If they can accomplish this when they have just begun to take advantage of their common language and political unity, just think of what they will do later.  Nothing will be impossible for them!”  Essentially, if they could clearly conceive an idea and overcome any “borders” or “shores” that would limit their ingenuity and implementation, then they could do anything that they thought.

Charles Dickens in his novel, David Copperfield, speaks of the necessity of unified thought and action in marriage.  “There is not a disparity in marriage like unsuitability of mind and purpose.”  If a husband and wife are of the same mind and possess a united game plan, they can accomplish any goal or dream.

You will recall, in the Tower of Babel narrative, God decides to impede the people’s progress of building of a  monument to the heavens.  In accordance with Genesis 6:5, the Lord questions the purposes of the Tower of Babel.  Rather than honoring and glorifying Him and furthering His objectives, the Tower of Babel rises as a testimonial to human willpower.  So, the Lord confounds the language and gives them different languages.  The builders are not able to understand each other.  They find people who speak their “new” language and go their own separate ways in groups.  The Tower of Babel remains incomplete to this day.

The biblical word, confounds, means to confuse, fortify and enclose.  By giving them different languages, Almighty God puts a formidable barrier between them.  It practically prevents the progress of the building of the Tower of Babel.  More significantly, it permanently limits their communication and creativity.  Not only will the Tower of Babel remain unfinished, but also there will be no possibility of conceiving any venture of this sort in the future.  Likewise, negative thoughts and language confound the prospects of achieving our dreams and goals.

In order to annihilate immediate mental defeat, we seek anything positive in every situation.  As believers in the Lord Jesus Christ, we find hope in everything.  We discard negative things that easily and quickly entangle us.  Despite the length of the challenge and the weight of the burden, we rejoice in the hope that our Lord gives us through His example.  The author of Hebrews (12:1-2) exhorts us to “lay aside every weight” as we run the race with perseverance.  Negativity and immediate mental defeat are two of the biggest weights that burden us.

Of course, fear, our daily negative companion, is the identical twin of mental defeat.  Fear emerges and strengthens thoughts of failure that overcome us.  We must overwhelm this internal adversary before we can win externally.  Fear encourages us to flunk ourselves even before we have taken the exam.  It also coerces us to give ourselves a grade of “F” before we start the paper.  Additionally, fear yells within our minds like a dictatorial editor while we write.  If that is not enough, doubt, a very close relative, visits and joins in the fray of unhelpfulness.  The Greek word for doubt connotes warring twins.  Nevertheless, the annihilation of fear is essential to conquering the immediate mental defeat that threatens our creativity and seeks to imprison our talents.

Sometimes well-meaning people inclusive of family members and friends fan the flames of immediate mental defeat.  Because our ambitions shake them out of their complacency, they accentuate the negative rather than support us by being positive.  We necessarily resist any tendency to listen to their negative thinking.  A prominent pastor, in California who battled cancer, developed the practice of interrupting negative parishioners with stories about the cancer of relatives and acquaintances with the question, “Does this story have a good ending?  If it doesn’t, I don’t want to hear the rest of it.”  Similarly, I submit that we must firmly, politely and immediately apprehend negative stories that potentially deepen the potential for immediate mental defeat of our dreams and goals.

Interestingly, the Tower of Babel story teaches, “Nothing is impossible” to anyone who truly believes.  The Lord Jesus Christ says the same to the jaded father of an epileptic boy in Mark 9:23.  If you genuinely believe that you have the wherewithal to accomplish your goals and dreams, nothing can stop you.  Hopefully, you will not defeat yourself with negative thinking.  George Lucas, the creator of the Star Wars trilogy, says, “If you can conceive it, then you can achieve it.”  Again, triumphing over immediate mental defeat that commonly afflicts us is central to success.

Imagination is the foundation of practically everything.  It precedes the architectural renderings that produce blue prints, which precede the start of construction.    I conclude with the compelling story of a Louisiana preacher who was erroneously thought to be “slow and dumb” at the beginning of his ministry.  In fact, he was strongly encouraged to forego ministry with the insulting question, “Why would someone like you want to preach?’’ His wife was once told that she deserve substantial financial compensation given “what she has had to live with.”  Yet, this preacher triumphed over all adversity, internal and external.  Because he had the indomitable will to glorify Almighty God in the preaching ministry, he totally defeated the immediate mental defeat that sought to solidify his failure.