An Anchor for Our Soul

God gave us negative emotions in order to detect when something is wrong in our body, soul or spirit. They are safety precautions - flashing red lights to get our attention.

God provided them to protect us. We can take a searching moral and emotional inventory throughout the day to discern the sources of these negative thoughts, feelings and behavior.

As wounded individuals, we feel these slights and infractions on our personal space more vividly. Another person's words and actions trigger our defensive responses, which help us to survive.

However, we may find our self fearing a change or a negative response from someone that is not actually affecting our stability or security at all. It is their choice and bypasses our life entirely.

In this case, we pray for them, but do not attempt to control or influence their behavior. If they ask for our advice, we are free to give it. If we are safe, their behavior is really none of our business.

We fear the unknown aspects of life and we even dwell on eventual negative scenarios, fueled by our traumatized soul, in order to protect our self from the possible inevitability of these trying or debilitating circumstances.

We may cling to neurotic, addictive or compulsive behaviors in order to give our self a semblance of normalcy. We attempt to avoid the pain by defending our self with anger and other survival modes. We want to protect our self from further wounding.

We fill the emptiness within our soul with people, amassing worldly goods, increasing our bank account and providing our self with security in any way we can. We escape through addictions.

Certain triggers in life release a rush of adrenaline into our body and cause us to fight or flight. They hold power over our life and define our responses to people, places and events.

Triggers magnify our thoughts into extremes, which prevent us from clearly viewing a situation as it is actually transpiring. We need an anchor in order to keep our soul focused on the reality of what is going on around us.

These anchors can be a person, a piece of jewelry, our car keys, a Bible verse that we repeat as a mantra, something in the doctor's office that we can focus on to keep our self grounded in reality instead of controlled by illogical fears of the unknown.

Yet, a personal relationship with Jesus Christ is the only truly fulfilling anchor for our soul. Hiding under His wings within our spirit, we find a safe refuge and a high tower which provides peace regardless of the circumstances around us.

Prayer:

Father God, due to negative feelings of being unworthy and unlovable, we fear our past and do not want to embrace the future with faith in your faithfulness. Our fear paralyzes any attempts You make to set us free indeed (John 8:36), until we learn that Your faithfulness is stronger than all of our fears.

Thank You for teaching us to laugh at our foibles, to take our self less seriously, to relinquish the need for perfection,to look for the seed for a miracle in every trial and to enjoy life with the freedom of flexibility. You fill our life with Your presence, which alleviates our loneliness and anxiety. Your faith and courage within us give us the ability to face our woundedness, to heal and to walk in the freedom of Christ in us.

Thought for the Day:

There is no need to judge our self for our negative emotions and attitudes, because we developed them to ensure our survival; but now we can align our self with God's Word and enjoy the freedom of His presence and Spirit within us.

Changed from the Inside Out

 

As I learned to enter God's rest and walk in His Spirit, I experienced intense withdrawals from my former codependent lifestyle. I acted like a schizophrenic.

One moment I would say or do something codependent and the next moment I would step into my new role as a Spirit-led Believer and say or do the opposite. I confused people by this dual personality.

Gradually, I decreased in my role as a codependent and Christ increased in me. I learned to say "No" unless God told me to say "Yes." He taught me to let the job go undone; so others whom God was calling to that role would step up and do it instead of me.

I started to see and appreciate the gray hues and tones in life, rather than seeing only black or white. My flexibility increased and my rigid extremes decreased.

The demon of perfectionism left my soul and I found joy in the messes of life as I had more time to enjoy other pursuits, which God called me to do. I actually left dishes in the sink and went to bed.

God's Spirit slowly changed my perspective from a carnal, earth-bound outlook to a spiritual, heavenly-minded one. He also healed my wounded soul, traumatized and dysfunctional since childhood and young adulthood ( www.theophostic.com ).

I released the shame and feelings of defectiveness attached to the wounds of the past and accepted His divine character and the fruit of His Spirit in their place (2 Peter 1:4; Galatians 5:22-23).

Prayer:

Father God, thank You for exposing Satan's lies, which made me believe that I had to earn love by my behavior. Your Agape love opened me up to expect unconditional love from the significant others in my life. The fear, insecurity, defensiveness and over-sensitivity, which plagued my life decreased as I learned to trust You in spite of the untrustworthy people in my life.

You taught me the reality of the fact that You work out everything for our good, even the negative experiences in our life, which threaten to choke the very life from our soul (Roman 8:28). You trained me to look for the seed for a miracle in every trial. You are our worthy, benevolent Father and we are completely loved by You.

Thought for the Day:

Self-destructive behaviors - driven by frustration, anger and a wounded soul - diminish as we learn to enter God's rest and bask in His peace and joy, which are our true source of strength. - Nehemiah 8:10

 

Freedom from Perfectionism

Being perfected into the image of God is certainly Biblical (Matthew 5:48, 19:21). However, the tendency toward human perfectionism in our daily life is fueled by a demon. Perfectionism drives us and everyone around us to perform obsessive and irrational actions.

This puts burdensome requirements on us, our family and our co-workers (Colossians 2:20-23). We are constantly stressed and worn out, and this adds to the negative atmosphere around us. Perfectionism and stress cause physical ailments. We spend too much time and money in doctor’s offices searching for a medical reason for our illness caused by perfectionism.

One great way to break this driving force is to start doing things less than perfectly. Allow the flatware in the drawer to slip to the side rather than insisting that it stay perfectly stacked. Stop using hair spray and allow your locks to dance with the wind (1 Peter 3:3-4). Wear shoes that do not perfectly match your outfit once in a while. Vacuum once a week rather than every day.

You get the idea. Stop attempting to perfect everything in your life. You will make so many other people happy and free, including yourself. If someone judges you for this deviation in perfection, that is their problem, not yours (1 John 4:18). If someone is upset because you are a few minutes late, this will free them from their perfectionism.

God wants to deliver us from this demonic oppression. We simply need to cooperate with Him to find our freedom. Do not hesitate to say, “No” to someone’s request, if it is not God’s Will. This gives someone else a chance to bless the person and to reap the blessing for themselves; and gives you some time to be still and know God more intimately (Psalm 46:10).

Prayer:

Father God, we allow so many issues and people to dictate our daily schedule instead of Your Holy Spirit. Remind us to seek Your will for each moment of our life, rather than to insist on our own agenda or to be a slave to someone else’s expectations (Proverbs 3:5-6; Ephesians 2:8-10). Help us to give others, whom we were attempting to control by our perfectionism, the ownership for their own lives. You make us perfect; it is not our job to perfect our self or anyone else around us (Psalm 18:23). We are confident that You started a perfecting work in our life and will complete it in Your way and timing (Philippians 1:6, 3:12; 2 Corinthians 7:1).

Thought for the Day:

Do not put an emphasis on perfectionism in this life, or you will be foolish, destroy yourself, be overworked and die before your time; the person who avoids extremes trust in the Lord. - Ecclesiastes 7:16:18; 1 Corinthians 13:6