Are You An Overthinker or An Overcomer?

I have been writing Monday Morning for several years. Regardless of the topic of the week, it is primarily written to remind you that you are greater than any problem confronting you. Capable of handling any adversity you are facing, bigger than any obstacle before you, and worthy of the deeply held dreams you have been given for your life.

Now, I can hear someone say, “That’s easy enough for you to say, but you don’t know what I having to deal with. You’re not in my situation. If you had to walk a mile in my shoes, you’d not say such things.”

To this my response is that there are two forces at work in your life, faith and fear. It is up to us to decide which of these forces are unleashed in our lives.

Obviously, this is not intended to be a religious column, but sometimes the stories many of us learned in Sunday School serve a twofold purpose in later life. To a person of faith, they serve to reinforce their beliefs; to a non-believer these stories can, like stories from other literature teach a valuable life lesson.

On this subject of faith and fear, there is one story that stands out in my mind. Remember the story of Jesus walking on the water? Peter stepped out of the boat and began walking toward him. Then we are told that he began to sink because he “saw the waves and heard the crashing waves” around him and was filled with fear.

Now, most of us know that story don’t we? Peter was doing what was seemingly impossible, until he began to focus on the things going on around him. He was mentally distracted from the faith centered, confidence producing power that enabled him to get where he was. He began thinking, “What am I doing out here in the middle of this sea? Everybody knows you can’t do what I am doing. Look at the size of these waves, it must be blind luck that I’ve gotten this far without being knocked down by one. And even if I make it to where Jesus is, how am I going to get back to the boat?”

You get the gist of this type of thinking don’t you? As long as Peter’s mind was centered on the source of his confidence he was full of the faith needed to attempt the impossible, but when he began to focus on all the obstacles, the potential problems that could befall him, and the heap of trouble he would be in if those things materialized, his fear overwhelmed his faith and he began to sink.

My father used to say that there were two kinds of people in the world, overcomers and overthinkers. An overcomer is a person who dares to step out of the boat when they catch the vision of what they can become; and start walking—despite the winds and waves—and walk the seeming impossible walk.

An overthinker is the person who, catching the vision of what they can become starts looking at all the reasons it can’t happen, won’t happen and becomes overwhelmed by their fears, which colors their thinking, paralyzes their actions and limits their potential.

Stepping out of that boat, Peter was thinking like an overcomer. When he started thinking about all the potential hazards around him, and what could happen, he became an overthinker. Now, I often wonder when I read that story what would have happened had Peter not become an overthinker and allowed his fears to overwhelm him.

How far could he have walked? Had he walked all the way to the shore how would that have affected him and his potential? According to the story, Jesus got him back to the boat—the place he started from—could it be that giving counsel to our fears is the reason we never seem to get away from where we keep finding ourselves? Could that be the reason that even when we step out in confidence and begin moving toward our dreams that we eventually wind up back where we started?

Well, you may be saying, how do I become an overcomer instead of an overthinker? Let me give you a simple principle that most of the overcomers I’ve known follow.

They follow Davy Crockett’s motto. According to reliable sources, Davy Crockett lived by the motto, “Be sure you are right, then go ahead.” If we live by those words it means that we make sure that the goals we are striving for are those that are not only what’s best for us, but will benefit others as well.

When we are sure that the dream we are pursuing is the right dream for us, then it’s time to stop overthinking, step out of the boat and begin becoming an overcomer.
Have a GREAT and profitable week!
Robert Hidde
bob@confidentliving.com