Brush it Off like
Dandruff
Let’s face it, we’ve all have had dandruff at one
point or another in our lives. When we see it, we get annoyed and brush it off.
Notice I said…when. You don’t often see it if you’re wearing light-colored
clothing, but you can spot it immediately if you’re wearing dark-colored
clothing, especially black. The worst is when someone points it out to you, or
starts brushing it off for you! It’s the making for an awkward, embarrassing or
annoying moment.
Sometimes you hear family, friends or even
coworkers say, “Brush it off” and find yourself biting your tongue and having
all sorts of colorful thoughts in your mind. You’re smiling now because you
know what I’m saying is true.
Well imagine if you were in the middle of going
through something relatively hard and you heard the Holy Spirit tell you, “Brush
it off like Dandruff.” What would your reaction be? You’d probably say to
yourself, I’m hearing things; God has an incredible sense of humor; or what the
heck???? Which would you choose? You would probably choose the latter.
So indulge me for just a moment and just imagine
you heard the words “Brush it off like dandruff” and read on and find out what
that would mean to you.
Many of us are immersed in stress as the norm
because we entertain negative thoughts of what may be that never happens.
Imagine that your mind has shoulders. (I know weird-looking brain.) The
shoulders are shelves where you put stuff on. That stuff represents things like
doubt, fear, worry which (by the way) rolls up as stress.
The stuff on your shoulders starts out like small
flakes. You can’t see it when death is forming in your brain because it’s
hidden well. (Remember dandruff is dead skin – yuck!) Once it becomes
uncomfortable (itchy), it begins to come off as flakes. At first, it’s ignored
because everybody thinks that way (you know, negative thoughts) and the flakes
are minimal.
You don’t notice at first (because of the light
clothes), but eventually it shows up (on your dark clothes) as dark moods, sad
thoughts, worry, unbelief, stress, etc. It becomes extremely apparent not only
to you, but to others as well.
When you brush off dandruff, you don’t usually do
it with a gentle gesture. As a matter of fact, if it increases your brushing
becomes an annoyed clearing of those pesky flakes.
Life’s hindrances are just like dandruff and only
you can clear out any of the negatives that have perched on your mind’s shoulders.
So here comes the friend or the (not-so-shy
stranger) that may point it out from time to time. Instead of getting angry,
you should be grateful. Those flakes are so unbecoming and are an apparent indicator
that there’s an underlying problem that you are not fixing.
So, imagine if you heard those same words, “Brush
it off like dandruff” when it comes to unbelief. Hmmm…that would be another
great area to dive into. (To be continued…)
