THE MIX IN YOUR HEAD

A Devotional for the Chronically Anxious--which statistically speaking is all of us!

Let me start with a confession.

I have never run a soundboard.

Never been trained on one.

Wouldn’t know a gain knob from a fader, mostly.

To me, the soundboard at Grace Church looks like the cockpit of a Boeing 747.

Hundreds of little knobs. Sliders that go up and down. Lights blinking like it is about to launch a missile.

But every Sunday, I stand up here and Lorenzo Banda — our excellent sound engineer — is back there in the booth and God bless him for it —is making decisions about my voice.

He decides how loud the keyboard is.

He decides whether you can hear the bass.

He decides if my microphone makes me sound like Pastor John,

or like Pastor John preaching from inside a tin can

at the bottom of a swimming pool.

That sound engineer is not making the music.

They are not playing an instrument.

They are deciding

what gets turned up

and

what gets turned down.

Friend — you have one of those in your head.

Right behind your eyes, just past the bridge of your nose,

there is a little person sitting at a giant soundboard,

twisting knobs and pushing faders all day long.

And here’s the catch:

The sound engineer in your head is on the payroll.

The only question is — who’s signing the checks?

THE SHIFT

I been reading David a lot this week…and David dealt with many things he didn’t want to deal with…sound familiar…

Psalm 139, David prays,

“Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts.”

Psalm 139:23

I wrote in my prayer journal this line after reading David:

“It’s not what’s happening out there that makes me anxious —

it’s what I allow in here to go undetected and unchecked.”

Now — if you grew up like I did,

You assumed that anxiety was something that happened to you.

Somebody else turned the volume up on your life.

The boss. The kids. The economy. The doctor’s office.

The breaking news alert at 11:47 PM

when you really should have been asleep two hours ago.

“That’s why I’m anxious,” you say.

“It’s because of them.

It’s because of that.

It’s because of this.”

And then David —

warrior-poet,

shepherd-king,

man who literally killed a giant with a slingshot —

interrupts your blame tour and goes:

“Hey. Hey. Hey.

Search ME.

Know MY heart.

Test ME and know MY anxious thoughts.”

David is not saying, “Lord, deal with my enemies.”

He’s already done that.

He’s killed the bear.

He’s killed the lion.

He’s killed Goliath.

Saul has tried to kill him about seventeen times by Tuesday.

And David is sitting there going,

“Yeah … none of those people are the problem anymore.

“The problem is the mix in my head.”

WHO IS RUNNING YOUR SOUNDBOARD?

Here’s what I want you to picture.

You walk into your day this morning,

and there are about forty-seven channels going at once.

Channel 1: That thing your spouse said.

Channel 2: That email you haven’t answered.

Channel 3: Your kid’s grades.

Channel 4: Your back hurts again.

Channel 5: That weird mole. Probably nothing. Probably.

Channel 6: The news.

Channel 7: Your bank account.

Channel 8: That thing you said in 2007 that you still cringe about.

Channel 9: Whether anyone actually liked your sermon last Sunday.

(Okay, that last one is mine. You probably have your own Channel 9.)

All forty-seven channels are live.

All of them are running into the mixing board behind your eyes.

And the sound engineer up there is making decisions

about which channels you actually hear today.

Now here is what most of us do.

We hand the soundboard over.

Just —

hand it over.

To whoever wants it.

Cable news?

“Come on in, friend. Here are the keys.”

Social media algorithm?

“Sit right down. Adjust whatever you’d like.”

That one critical voice from twenty years ago?

“Wow, you’re still here? Of course you can run the board today!”

And then we wonder why our anxiety is louder than our faith.

Friend — if you don’t run your soundboard,

somebody else will. And they will not be running it in your best interest.

PAY ATTENTION TO WHAT IS GETTING TURNED UP

Here’s the diagnostic question.

And it is borderline rude.

But sometimes the Holy Spirit is rude.

Which channels in your head are at maximum volume right now?

Be honest. Just for a second.

Don’t make it sound holy.

Don’t dress it up in church language.

Just — what is loud in your head right now?

Because here is the brutal truth:

Whatever is loudest in your head

is what’s discipling your soul.

If fear is loudest, fear is discipling you.

If resentment is loudest, resentment is discipling you.

If that one critic from 1998 is still loudest —

Brenda, if you’re listening, I forgive you, please leave my head —

then Brenda is still discipling you.

And the question is not,

“Why is Brenda so loud?”

The question is,

“Why do I keep handing Brenda the soundboard?”

WHAT JESUS DOES WITH THE BOARD

Look at how Jesus handles His own mix in Mark 4.

The disciples are in the boat.

Storm comes up.

Water is filling the boat.

Wind is screaming.

They are about to die. (Spoiler: they were not, in fact, about to die.)

And the disciples come to Jesus and they go,

“Teacher, do You not care that we are perishing?”

Which is the most disciple thing the disciples ever said.

They are essentially complaining to the Son of God

that He should care more about their feelings.

Jesus is in the boat with them, asleep on a cushion,

and they are accusing Him of not caring.

Jesus gets up. Doesn’t argue with them.

Walks out.

Looks at the storm.

And He says three words:

“Quiet. Be still.” — Mark 4:39

And the wind dies down.

And the sea — not slowly, not gradually —

the sea goes completely calm.

Now I want you to notice something about that scene.

Notice what Jesus did NOT do.

He did not say:

“Guys, have you considered that the storm is here for a reason?”

He did not say:

“Maybe we should journal about this.”

He did not say:

“Let’s process our feelings about the storm.”

Jesus walked up to the loudest channel on the mixing board

and He pulled the fader down to zero.

Because that is what Lordship looks like —

Jesus has the authority to decide what gets to be loud in your life.

And the question is whether you’ll let Him sit in the chair.

HANDING OVER THE BOARD

So here is the practical thing.

And I want you to do this for real.

Not Christianese-fake-do-this.

Actually do this. Sometime today —maybe in the car on the way to work,

maybe in the H-E-B parking lot when the worry shows up, maybe at 3:45 in the morning when you can’t sleep —I want you to actually picture the soundboard.

Picture the channels.

Pick the one that is loudest.

Name it out loud.

“The loudest thing in my head right now is fear about my health.”

“The loudest thing in my head right now is what she said.”

“The loudest thing in my head right now is the money.”

Naming it is half the battle.

Somebody once called it “the shift from external factors to the inner me.”

David calls it

“search me.”

I call it

“getting honest about who is running the board.”

Once you’ve named it, do this:

“Lord, this is loud.

I have been letting this be loud for a long time.

I am taking my hands off the soundboard.

Will You sit in the chair?”

And then — and this is the part nobody likes —

Ask Him what He wants turned up.

Because here is what I have found, after thirty years of preaching:

Jesus does not just turn anxiety down.

He turns His promises up.

He pushes the fader on:

“I will never leave you nor forsake you.”

He pushes the fader on “My peace I give to you.”

He pushes the fader on “Cast all your anxiety on Me, because I care for you.”

And suddenly the same room —

same circumstances,

same bills,

same diagnosis,

same hard conversation —

sounds completely different.

Because the room didn’t change.

The mix did.

ONE MORE THING

If you’ve been an anxious person your whole life,

I want to say something to you straight.

It is not a character flaw.

It is not a faith problem.

It is not because you don’t love Jesus enough.

Some of us came into the world with a soundboard

that was preset to “maximum volume on the bad channels.”

That’s not your fault.

That’s the family bundle.

That’s wiring.

That’s the gene pool.

That’s three generations of stuff you didn’t sign up for.

And if you need a therapist, get a therapist.

If you need medication, take medication.

If you need a counselor, find a counselor.

Spiritual maturity is not refusing to use the tools God put in the world.

But also — do not let anybody tell you that you cannot grow in this.

David grew.

Paul grew.

Peter — panic Peter, sinking-in-the-water Peter, denied-Jesus-three-times Peter —

Peter grew. To the point where he wrote, with a steady hand:

“Cast all your anxiety on Him, because He cares for you.”

— 1 Peter 5:7

That verse was not written by a calm man.

That verse was written by a recovering Panicker.

Which means there is hope for the rest of us.

A PRAYER FOR THE OVER-MIXED SOUL

Lord, the mix in my head is a mess. There are too many channels running, and most of them are louder than they should be. I have handed the soundboard over to voices that do not love me, and I have let them turn up things You never wanted amplified. Forgive me. Search me, and know my heart. Test me, and know my anxious thoughts. Show me the channels I’ve been letting run unchecked. And Jesus — would You sit in the chair? Would You take the board? Turn down what does not belong. Turn up what does. And teach me, one day at a time, to leave the mixing to You. In Your name, amen.

It is not what is happening out there that is making you anxious. It is what you have allowed in here to go unchecked. Get honest about the mix. Get Jesus in the chair. And watch what He turns down — and what He turns up.

The best is yet to come —

Your Hope Dealer,

Rookie Roberts!