Mental Storms at 30,000 Feet
Why your mental storms might be setting you up for divine breakthrough
Somewhere over the Midwest, trapped in seat 14C, I was drowning in my own thoughts.
The kind of drowning that happens when you're physically still but mentally spiraling. Money worries circled like vultures. How was I going to provide for my family? The bills, the future, the endless pressure to have it all figured out. And of course, that stress was bleeding into everything else. I was becoming a less present partner to my fiancée, distracted and anxious instead of the man she deserved. Which made my life feel smaller, darker, more suffocating.
Classic me. Getting in my own way again.
The Familiar Pattern
This wasn't new territory. I've walked this anxious loop more times than I care to count. Money stress triggers relationship distance, which makes life feel overwhelming, which circles back to more money worry. Round and round, like a washing machine stuck on spin cycle.
I think there's something twisted about the control aspect of it all. In a world where I have control over so little, there's this perverse comfort in knowing I can at least control the rate at which I mess myself up. I'm consistent at self-sabotage, if nothing else.
But somewhere over those patchwork farmlands below, I reached for my headphones. Not to escape exactly, but maybe to reach toward something bigger than my spiraling thoughts. I queued up my worship playlist and spiritually took my hat off.
I was in the presence of the divine.
God Breaks the Ice
The first song hit like a gentle but firm hand on my shoulder. God drawing my attention, priming me, opening me up to what He needed me to hear. The lyrics cut straight through my mental fog: You're your own worst enemy.
There it was. The truth I'd been dancing around, served up in melody and harmony. All this anxiety, all this stress, all this getting in my own way. It wasn't the circumstances doing it to me. It was me doing it to myself.
Getting in my own way is pervasive into all walks of life. Thinking about money through the lens of "find what's wrong." Thinking about relationships through the filter of failure. Thinking about life as a problem to solve instead of a gift to receive.
And then the chorus: Changing that starts right here, starts right now.
Right here, 30,000 feet above the ground. Right now, in this moment of recognition.
Come, Thou Fount of Every Blessing
The second song was "Come, Thou Fount of Every Blessing" and I knew God was speaking directly to me. I remembered the first time I heard this hymn on a road trip with my mentor, how he explained the Prodigal Son story. How in the original Hebrew, when the father sees his returning son, God doesn't just welcome him back. He reaches out, grabs him, and pulls him close.
In that airplane seat, I found myself internally praying: God, reach out and grab me. Take me back.
And then the verse came on, like an immediate response to my plea:
Prone to wander, Lord I feel it
Prone to leave the God I love
Here's my heart, oh take and seal it
Seal it for Thy courts above
It was God saying, "I got you."
The honesty of those lyrics wrecked me in the best way. Prone to wander. That's exactly what I am. Prone to anxiety, prone to control, prone to getting in my own way. But also prone to return, prone to reach out, prone to be grabbed by grace.
Divine Comedy
Then God decided to switch up the playlist.
"God is Good" by Forest Frank came on next, and I literally laughed out loud. The sudden shift from traditional hymn to contemporary rap was so unexpected, so perfectly timed, that I could practically see God sitting next to me with a mischievous smirk, waiting for my reaction.
The message was clear: In all things, at all times, God is good. He's in control. Trust that.
The laughter was holy. It broke the emotional intensity and reminded me that God has a sense of humor. He took me from deep spiritual wrestling to lighthearted joy in the span of one song transition. From tears to laughter, from heaviness to hope.
The Honest Truth
Here's what I wish I could tell you: that this 30-minute encounter at altitude permanently cured my anxiety, that I never spiral into control and worry anymore.
But that would be a lie.
This is cyclical. I fall back into the same incorrect human thinking patterns. The money worries return. The relationship stress creeps in. I get in my own way again and again.
But here's what these divine interruptions teach me: God meets us in our patterns. He doesn't wait for us to have it all figured out before He speaks. He breaks through our spirals with music, with truth, with perfectly timed reminders of His goodness.
For me, music opens up my spirit like nothing else can. It makes me sensitive and attuned to the divine in ways that surprise me every time. Maybe for you it's nature, or scripture, or silence. God communicates in all sorts of ways. Some we're more sensitive to than others.
The plane landed. The music stopped. Life resumed.
But for 30 minutes at 30,000 feet, I remembered who was really in control. And sometimes, that's exactly the reminder a wandering heart needs to find its way back home.
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