We often
view our self as a helpless victim of life. We wallow in self-pity and feel out
of control all of the time. We use defenses such as anger or depression -
repressed anger; and at times, completely give up and waste away uselessly.
Other people
pull themselves up by their boot strap and plod along determinedly with harmful
fight or flight adrenaline boosting their emotions to dangerously heightened
levels.
Others
vacillate between grouchy annoyance and vengeful fury. We can easily escalate to high
levels of rage in our attempt to intimidate people or situations in order to
force them to really listen to us.
Yet, there
is a happy medium between these two extremes: turning our life over to God's control
and living submissively to His will. We cannot control life's circumstances or
the people with which we have to live, worship, work and associate.
The only
entity which we can control is our own soul - our own thoughts, feelings and
choices. We do not have to live under the oppression of stressful thoughts and
beliefs, or a warped sense of reality perceived through the filter of Satan's
lies.
Our beliefs
control our thoughts, emotions, motives and actions. As we inventory what we
believe, we can change our behavior by changing our erroneous viewpoints.
Once we balance
our focus concerning some event or person, we free our thoughts and emotions,
and increase our sense of peace and equilibrium. We entertain more patience,
kindness, understanding and grace toward people and even toward our own self.
We end the
tyranny of earthly possibilities and concerns and keep our focus on spiritual
certainty. We stop allowing the bothersome ideals of the visible realm of life
to distract us from the realities of the invisible realm of God's plans for us.
Prayer:
Father God,
remind us to use the wisdom of the Serenity Prayer to bring more balance and
equanimity and a sense of well-being to our life. Validate our self-esteem and
affirm our self-worth when we gain our perspective about our identity from our
relationship with You and not from our own works or other people.
Teach us to
be present with our self in each moment of time, to take frequent searching
inventories of our thoughts and feelings and to cast aside the lies Satan uses
to place wedges between our relationship with our self, other people or You.
The devil, our flesh and the world attempt to pull us away from an abiding
sense of inner peace, love, joy and serenity, which we gain only from our worship
of You.
Thought for
the Day:
Take an
inventory of your common thoughts and beliefs, and line them up with the
reality of God's Word; if God said it, that settles it and we can believe it.
