Erase and Replace

Stress fighter tip #4. Putting in a new tape. Often when buying an electronic CD or cassette player one of the features we like to have is a device that will play the tape over and over again. Something like that may work for our favorite music but it doesn't work for the tapes we often store in our heads. One of the biggest contributors to stress is the tapes we play in our heads. Those recordings in our minds and heart that remind us of past mistakes, failed relationships, lack of something, overabundance of other things like trouble and trials. Recordings or thoughts that need to be erase and replaced.

 

We need to learn to put in new tapes that reflect something more positive than the long list of failures, flukes, and fumbled situations we've encountered. Even the CD of our favorite music gets old after awhile if we hear it over and over again in a long enough cross country journey we are on. Eventually we will change one favorite CD for another, why not do this in our mind with the tapes we like to play back again and again.

 

 

Read the rest at: anniejenningspr.com/jenningswire/author/karen-gillett/

 

Thanks for dropping in,

 

Karen

Ours for the Choosing

“The way you think determines the way you feel, and the way you feel determines the way you act.” Rick Warren

The other day at Bible Study I had a lady remind me that “garbage in is garbage out.” Whatever it is we feed our minds it’s going to show up in our behavior. We can rest assure if we feed on insecurities and negative thinking it will eventually come out in the way we act.

End of note. Have a good day now its time to go visit our host for the day…..

No, no, no, no….back the thinking bus up we aren’t finished here yet. We need to figure out what comes first the chicken or the egg, the feeling or the thinking.

Too often we like to get the one ahead of the other. We stand by our conviction that it was someone else who “made us feel” a certain way which caused us to think and act as we did. As we all have been told our mind is the battlefield and how we conduct ourselves in these times of battle makes all the difference in the world.

Years ago when I was talking with a couple who had gone through marriage counseling they let me in on some of the things they had learned. Truths on both sides of the aisle that was helpful in their relationship. The husband learned that it wasn’t his wife who was “making” him mad. The fact that he was quick to lose his temper was his choice. No one “made” him angry it was triggered by what he was thinking and past habits dictating his current actions. It took awhile for this truth to sink in but he finally realized what the pastor had said was true. As much as he would have liked to continue to blame his wife for making him “feel” angry he took a step back and examined his thinking that led to the feeling that triggered the action.

It’s important we don’t make the mistake of allowing our feelings to run the show. We are the ones who need to be in charge of our feelings or emotions and it starts with our thinking, “garbage in, garbage out.” How we feel about ourselves dictates a lot on what we do. If we feel unworthy we will look for everything we possibly can to confirm how we feel. We frequently make the mistake of seeing our feelings as facts instead of exposing the thinking process behind them that started the whole thing.

The old saying of “the devil made me do it” is not a true statement. We do it to ourselves starting with our thinking that eventually leads to our actions. The time is now to start taking responsibility for our own actions and stop pointing our fingers at everyone else.

Our day-to-day living should never be based on how we “feel” but our calling from God as Christians. For example, there may be days we don’t “feel” like forgiving someone or encouraging another or whatever but that is what we are called to do. When our feelings don’t seem to match our faith we need to stand close to Jesus and allow His light to expose our thinking and walk us through these vulnerable times where footholds for Satan our easily made.

These are the thoughts that Karen had.
These are the feelings that came from the thoughts that Karen had
These are the acts that followed the feelings that came from the thoughts that Karen had.
These are the consequences that resulted from the acts that followed the feelings that came from the thoughts that Karen had.

This was all a lesson I had to learn for myself when I had epilepsy and 90% of my seizures were stressed caused. Guess where the process began….you got it….in my thinking. The consequences were increased seizures and a disability that was never going to end unless I made the choice to stop it. It doesn’t matter who we are or what issues we are dealing with we all have the same choice to make, the choice to stop it and get on track with our thinking to produce a harvest pleasing to God in our actions.


Copyright 2009 Karen J. Gillett @ Pencil Marks and Recipes Publishing

Affected By the Promises of God

“God’s promises are never affected by our failures. He can use us at any age.” Michael Youssef from Leading the Way.


At work in my desk drawer I keep a handbook that lists the Promises of God. Each morning as I prepare to start my day I take it out and pick a promise to use in my Morning Prayer walk around the chemotherapy room. With God’s pledge in my heart I begin my morning walk from chair to chair praying the words of God’s promises. A prayer directed towards the patients who sit in the chairs and the family and friends beside them in their journey.

Promises such as:
“I will never leave you nor forsake you.”
“I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.”
“The testing of your faith produces patience”
“Blessed is the man who endures temptation”
“Every good gift and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of
lights”
“We have a living hope through the resurrection of Christ from the dead”
“Be anxious for nothing but in prayer with thanksgiving let your requests be
known to God and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will
guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus”
“Draw near to God and He will draw near to you”
“Ask and it shall be given, seek and ye shall find”
“In My Father’s house are many mansions, if it were not so I would have told
you. I go to prepare a place for you.”
“You will keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on You, because he
trusts in You. Trust in the Lord forever, for in Yah, the Lord, is everlasting
strength”

Praise the Lord, Praise the Lord, Praise the Lord as the list goes on….

What a wonderful thing to know that God’s promises are not affected by our failures. Since we all fall short of God’s glory no one would qualify for God’s promises if the pre-requisite for them in our lives was failure free first and forever! Ouch!

It’s important to learn that just because we have failed in things doesn’t make us a failure. If you think about it, we're all "udderly flawed" in some way or another. What seems to do us more harm than good are not the things we fail at but the perception of always thinking we are a failure because we lack the successes we think we should have. We carry around in our heart our own “easy” button in the form of a “failure alert” knob. A button we frequently push or allow others to push for us that sounds off, “Failure, Failure, Failure.”

It’s time to take the measuring stick away from what we think we should measure up to and measure ourselves against Christ. As cancer knows no age limit neither does God when it comes to being able to use us to do His work. To Him we all can be a success story when we allow Him to work through us. We don’t have to wait until we turn 18 or 21 or 50, He can use us at any age.
It’s not like searching for a job where one of the main qualifications listed is “experience required or preferred.” What God prefers is a willing heart, one that is willing to learn from their failures in order to grow in their faith.

God’s promises are not affected by our failures but our failures can be affected by God’s promises, Praise the Lord. Think about it and you’ll see. Experience it and you’ll know.



The lovely host today is….oh its me! Well stay here and share and go make the rounds to see what others have to say about today’s quote.

The "Whatever" List

June 10th IOW

Finally, brethren , whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things. Phil 4:8

Paul in this particular chapter had just told those listening to not fret or have any anxiety about anything. What he wanted them to do was to continue to make their wants known to God. Doing so by prayer and petition WITH thanksgiving in any and all circumstances. Next assignment was to focus on the “WHATEVER” list that he gave them to think from and ponder over. It was a kind “whatever” test to see where they were in their thinking process or at least where they needed to be.

Where I work, every piece of documentation must pass a test. Each piece is required to stand on it’s own. It doesn’t matter what was documented yesterday or the day before or a year ago. The final rule being if it wasn’t documented it didn’t happen.

If you think about the test that our thoughts should be going through it’s quite similar. It doesn’t matter what we thought yesterday, what our thoughts were last week, or what our thoughts were a year ago. Each thought has to pass it’s own test and stand on its own. With some people we can get away with saying, “we didn’t think those thoughts!” However, with God all our thoughts are documented as they happen in a type of instant messaging system that reaches Heaven faster than we can think them.

In the ideal world every thought we think or deed we do should make the “whatever” list but sadly enough that isn’t the way it always happens. That’s where 2 Cor 10:5 comes in that tells us to “….bring every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ.” If it doesn’t make the “whatever” list then obviously we need to hold the thought captive in order to get it into obedience with what Christ would want us to think.

The mind being the battlefield and our thoughts often the weapons used to bring us down it can get very complicated. Frequently it seems like we are holding more thoughts captive than we are checking off the “whatever” list. Fighting occasionally a thought that seems to bounce around the inside of our head like some ping-pong ball using its “get out of jail free card” to run lose in our mind.

It reminds me of something my neurologist told me once about the orientation of my seizure activity. Brain waves would hit the scar tissue left behind from my brain surgery when I was 12 years old and go the wrong way and I would have a seizure.

Our thoughts hit the things Satan likes to plant in our heads and they go the wrong way and therefore we wind up in disobedience with God. Long before they have a chance to bounce off those substances we need to hold our thoughts captive. Keeping them confined until they make the “whatever” list. We are the gatekeeper of our minds, what goes in, will eventually come out in some form or another. The choice once again is ours for the choosing, garbage in, garbage out what’s it going to be.

CLOSING THOUGHT: The answer “whatever,” is often the reply used to get out of having to come up with an actual answer. A response we’ve all probably used at one point or another. A lot of time it is said in a somewhat disrespectful frustrated manner, “Ohhhhhhh whateverrrrrr!” When we hear that we pretty much know the subject is closed.

Not with God! When He gives us a “whatever” it’s only the beginning and we better be paying attention. He’s not trying to get out of answering a question. He says it to give us a point of focus to keep us on track. It’s not to make our life more difficult or to take away our “freedom of speech and thought” but to keep us free from falling into the snares of Satan instead of the blessings of God. The more we measure the thoughts going in, the better the outcome of those coming out.

Our host this week is Nina at her site, Mama’s Little Treasures hobble on over there and join the gang by adding your own or reading what others have to say.