I needed a decompression chamber after my month in Romania; emotionally, spiritually, mentally and spiritually. When I was in college and I was stressing out about something, I would go out to my car and turn on my radio. Now, it wasn’t just any radio. I had configured two 12-inch subwoofers that were hooked through my stereo to a 500 watt amp. Now, to put this into perspective to those of you who have no idea what I’m talking about, when I played my radio loud, my family could hear me from inside the house when I was a quarter mile away from our house. The sound waves would rattle the mirrors and blur my vision if I put my head on my steering wheel. I think you are getting the picture now. Anyways, this was the environment I would thrust myself into whenever I was stressed, uptight, upset, frustrated, or all of the above. I would inoculate my brain with garbage music that not only turned my brain to mush from the sound waves, but also by the words that were being sung, screamed or rapped into my head.
However, (although fun and enjoyable for short periods of time), this is no longer the decompression chamber I am referring to. One thing I have learned on this Race around the world is that His presence is the best decompression chamber of all time. Going to scripture in any heated moment of emotion, especially negative, seems to “right the ship” of my spirit and of my mind. Now I will fully admit that I am not to the point yet that I run to scripture FIRST during these times of negative emotion, but I can definitely tell you that when I do run to it, when I do seek truth, and when I do enter in to the decompression chamber that is the Holy Spirit’s presence when reading the word, it relaxes me and calms me down more than any amount of time in a thumpin’ car—breathing in his grace and peace and exhaling my frustration and sin. **
** There is a GREAT book out about the whole process I just mentioned of breathing in the Holy Spirit and his grace, peace and forgiveness and exhaling our frustrations and sin. It’s called Need to Breathe: Learning to Cooperate With God’s Purpose for Your Life by Dr. Jim Mindling Jr. If you’ve got the time, I suggest you read it.
