A Serene Life

The busyness of life is more and more distracting to the modern day person and parent. We make sports, music, dance and hobbies a priority over church activities, which teaches our children that worldly pursuits are more important than God in our life.

The way to remedy this modern phenomenon is to align our activities with Biblical priorities by seeking first God's Kingdom (Matthew 6:33). This causes the noise of life to diminish, and we find more joy and tranquility in our daily schedule.

Rather than to drown out God's directives by the noise of worldly pursuits, we reduce the cacophony of life by making God's will our priority each moment of our day. As the noise of this world diminishes, the guidance of God's Spirit is more acute and discernible.

We fully experience God's abundant life, which brings Him glory and honor in our every thought, word and activity (John 10:10). We come to realize the magnitude of the concept of Jesus Christ actually abiding in us by His Spirit, and we surrender our goals and priorities to Him (Proverbs 3:5-6).

Jesus admonished us to live dramatically different lives from those who live in the world. He encouraged us to love God more than those in our household and even our own life (Luke 14:26; Matthew 6:24). 

Our love for God is so paramount that we actually feel more love for Him than we do for anyone else. God has the bulk of our affections and everything we think, say and do is a reflection of Christ's life within us (Galatians 2:20). 

Our heart swells with our adoration of our God and Savior, and we serve at the pleasure of our King in our family, church and community activities.

The worldly clutter in our life disappears and we live above the clamor of life swirling all around us. We rest in God and serve from this place of unhindered peace (Hebrews 4:9-11). We see life from His perspective and we rise above the demands of modern society.

We can also rise above the temporal issues of this life, the attitudes of our fellow sojourners, and the circumstances that attempt to overwhelm us. This prevents them from robbing us of our joy in the Lord.

When we keep our focus on the joy set before us, spiritual truths actually govern our life. God is still in control, Jesus sits on the throne and abides within us, and the Holy Spirit will guide every step we take and keep us in God's will for our life.

Prayer:

Father God, remind us that You created rest for more than the Sabbath and help us to enter into Your Kingdom's rest. Open our eyes to the reality of Christ in us and the fact that His presence in our life removes the necessity of us struggling to survive in this world. Help the codependent and workaholic to totally surrender to Your Spirit's direction for each moment of our day, rather than to succumb to the tendency to enable people and to do more than Your will for our life.

This way we rise above the stress and negativity of life on planet earth and dwell in Your Kingdom now.  Teach us to rest in Your loving presence, which will increase our positive emotions and decrease our depression and anxiety over the issues we face each day. We thank You for Your grace in our life and for our unity with the Trinity, which abides within us.

Thought for the Day:

Any negative emotion in our life is a red flag to signal an unresolved conflict within us, an idol we erected above the Lord, a misleading focus on the importance of the issues of this life, or that we are walking outside of God's will for our day.

Healing from Negative Emotions

Every person alive is affected by our childhood experiences. The memory of these events are stored in our subconscious mind. They shaped our opinion of our self and how we react to the world around us.

They cause many of our current negative emotions, which affect us in body, soul and spirit. These negative emotions are driven by lies, which Satan planted in each of our life's experiences.

The deep hurt, abuse, rejection, condescension, ridicule, belittlement and deprivation we experienced are etched into our subconscious mind. We have feelings of being "not enough", failures, unworthy and unacceptable.

We continue to blame our self for our negative emotions rather than the woundedness caused by our significant others, which we carried into our adulthood.

This self-condemnation causes other deep seated negative emotions to dominate our soul, such as: depression, stress, anxiety, hopelessness, and feelings of being unlovable.

The negative self-talk accompanying these feelings actually comes directly from Satan's lies planted in our soul. God wants to set us free from these lies. As we surrender them to Him, He reveals to us His Truth about them.

This requires that we reject the negative attitudes, expressions and clichés, which we collected throughout our lifetime. God exposes unconscious memories by bringing them into our conscious mind.

He sets us free from their hidden power over us and provides us with His love, security, value, sense of belonging and life's necessities that we were deprived of in our past.

All that is required of us is that we courageously and willingly accept as our own, His free gifts of salvation, sanctification, deliverance and redemption (John 3:16-18; Psalm 34:19; 2 Corinthians 4:17).

Prayer:

Father God, continue to set us free from the negative energy of Satan's lies and help us to respond to Your love and provision in our life with gratitude and acceptance. When our emotions are triggered negatively by some current event, help us to trace it back to the lie, which Satan planted during our past; and then reveal to us Your truth about the situation in order to liberate us from the negative effects of these lies ( www.theophostic.com ).

Remind us to give attention to these nagging, unresolved conflicts, so that You can heal us and free us from their ability to rob us of the energy and focus we need to accomplish Your will with our life. Thank You that those, whom the Son sets free, are free indeed (John 8:36). We are no longer bound to negative emotions, but free to have a positive outlook on each moment of every day (Philippians 4:8).

Thought for the Day:

The significant others in our past did the best they could for us from their wounded soul; as we forgive them for their faults, we set our self free to love and be loved by God and other people.

Emotional Honesty

Emotional honesty is an oxymoron. We are so adept at hiding behind masks that we do not even know how we really feel or how to express that to other people. Journaling our true feelings is a good way to start.

We can also meet regularly with a trusted friend and verbally express our true feelings and deepest thoughts. We may even surprise our self when we discover our deepest feelings.

Talking, drawing, music and writing releases our soul from the bondage of playing games and pretending to be someone other than our true self. We release pent up emotional energy that formerly robbed us of physical energy.

Then, staying in touch with our true feelings allows us to find the root causes of all of our negative emotions. We can deal with the issue, or put it in God's capable hands.

Imperfection brings with it a certain vulnerability, shame and fear of not surviving. However, perfectionism is a demonic plague on humanity. Once we rid our self of the need to be perfect we can breathe a refreshing breath of pure air. We allow God's Spirit to do His perfecting work in us (Matthew 5:48). 

We also learn to accept life as God allows it to play out in the moments of our day. We stop resisting and attempting to control the issues. Instead, we find out what God is saying to us through them. We look for the seed of a miracle in each one of them.

When our perspective on life changes, so do our attitudes, thoughts, feelings and actions. We stop trying to force God into our box. Our paradigm, expectations and goals remain fluid in order to obey the leading of God's Spirit.

We learn to cherish every aspect of who we are, even our failings. We are kind to our self and learn to have more compassion on other people. We see life from their perspective and stop judging them and our self, but relate to them with God's mercy and grace.

Prayer:

Father God, our fears are not rational or logical; and often, not even conscious. We react in fear because our current circumstances trigger the memory of an event from our childhood. People look at us as if we have two heads and judge us as emotionally unstable, unpredictable and unbalanced. Yet, the fact is that we are simply wounded children.

Help us to rid our soul of the painful memories which litter our past. Teach us to cling to You as our defense rather than to defend our self. That way, no enemy can prosper against us (Isaiah 54:17). You are our comfort and the lifter of our head (Psalm 3:3). You heal us from the inside out and cleanse us all over. You make all things new and bring us into Your holy hill in Your perfect time and way (2 Corinthians 5:17; Psalm 24:3-6).

Thought for the Day:

When we pass judgment on our self or someone else, we are taking God's place and abusing and wounding our self and others more deeply than the pain we already experienced in our past.