I Don't Worry; I Pray

Someone asked me if I was worried about an issue and I said without thinking, "I don't worry, I pray." That comment hit me between the eyes, and I realized how true it has become in my life of over 40 years of learning to have faith in God's faithfulness.

Worry is a negative emotion and all negative emotions are red flags to show us areas in our life where we need attention. We may have a burden to share with someone who cares, a problem to solve or an idol to renounce.

Idols do not come in different shapes and sizes anymore. They are pet peeves, unrealistic goals, unwarranted demands, irritations and worries that do not belong in our life.

They tear us down by whittling away at our joy and serenity. They cause us to respond with irritability and even anger. They spoil our mood and rob us of our witness for Christ.

When we sense a negative emotion in our soul, a searching moral inventory is a good place to start. Ask yourself what is really bothering you and give yourself time to really think about it and to answer truthfully.

When you discover the root of the negative emotion ask yourself if you can do anything about it. If so, do it; if not then ask someone for help or give it to God to solve if it is something beyond human effort.

God can move mountains in our life when we trust in His faithfulness. He may not answer our prayers as we think He should, but He always works them out for our ultimate good (Romans 8:28).

Prayer:

Father God, we often overlook the power of prayer in our life. We worry first, connive through human effort second, ask other people for help and eventually, when all else fails, we remember to pray. Remind us to use prayer as our first defense and offense against the issues we face in life.  

When we trust You completely and put You first in our life, You always direct our steps and lead us to success (Proverbs 3:5-6). Help us not to allow worry to paralyze us into inactivity and to limit or stop our efficiency and initiative as You inspire us by Your Spirit.

Thought for the Day:

When we pray without ceasing, the Lord keeps us from trouble and delivers us in our distress; He calms our storms and smooths the rough seas; He quiets the waves and brings us safely home to our port. - 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18; 

Psalm 107:28-30; Matthew 8:23-27

Renewed Mind - Part 2 - Healing for our Wounded Soul

 

Satan plants lies in our soul throughout the experiences of our life. These misconceptions cause us to over-react irrationally and with intense emotion in our current life situations.

There are personality issues and woundedness in every person’s soul, which may trigger our wounds and hinder us, or our partner, friend or relative from changing or growing spiritually.

We need to see life through their eyes, not only through our own. God will give us His agape love to accept them for exactly who they are. Then we can also pray for them to be all that God wants them to be.

If we put their needs above our own, He gives us the patience to love them through their episodes. We realize that they are reacting from fear and woundedness, which our behavior triggered; and we do not take their rage or sullenness or impatience personally.

We pray for them and love them even more when they are behaving badly than we do when they are rational and kind. They have no idea why they are acting this way, but God does.

All negative behavior is a red flag to alert us of the woundedness in our soul. It may also be a false belief that is now an idol in our soul, because we give our pet peeves and misconceptions too much importance in our life.

We can take these irrational beliefs to God and gain His perspective on them, asking Him to change our focus about them until they lose their importance to us.

During rational moments, when no one is in a hurry or in need of our time, we can offer to pray with our spouse, friend or family member about their negative emotions.

They may be as clueless about their behavior as we are. They can start by journaling what they were thinking during their outburst. What thoughts were going through their mind? What did we do that triggered this reaction in them?

As we pray together, these problems are resolved as God reveals their root and origin, uncovers Satan's lie for us, and then speaks His truth to our soul. ( www.theophostic.com )

Prayer:

Father God, remind us that our soul longs more for a relationship with You than with a person. We often go from one person to another in this life, trying to find our soul mate, or someone to complete us.

Yet, the only way we can feel fulfilled is through deepening our commitment and our relationship with You. This is true even for married people. The more we find acceptance and develop satisfaction in our relationship with You, the more we can serve our mate out of our love for You (Ephesians 5:22, 6:7; Colossians 3:18, 23-24).

Thought for the Day:

Our support and acceptance of our partner’s, friend's or relative's shortcomings will do much to improve our attitude, as well as to improve their behavior through our love and consideration of their needs above our own.

Negative Strongholds

 

 

God gave us a wide gamut of emotions, which signal to us the mood in which our spirit, soul and body exist. Joyful emotions arise from positive experiences, but also from a spiritual outlook on negative circumstances.

Negative emotions signal areas in our life, which need our attention along with prayer for God's wisdom, direction and solutions. These emotions are not meant for expression, but as red flags to gain our attention and point out negative strongholds.

                                                                                            

They will destroy us if we ruminate on them or over react because of them. However, they can also apprise us of how life is affecting us and give us an opportunity to change our circumstances or to give the issues to God's faithful care (1 Peter 5:7).

The most basic source of these negative emotion signal us of an unmet need for our body or soul - our thoughts and emotions. Once we discern their cause, we realize that we can meet our own need or trust God to care for that need.

Also, Satan's lies will create negative emotions in the battleground of our mind. He whispers his lies and we believe them. 

These lies affect our feelings about our self, destroy our relationships with God and other people, and also fuel other negative emotions, which may even effect our physical, mental and emotional health.

We often have unrealistic expectations for God, people, places and situations in our life, which disappoint us when they fail to happen. This causes a myriad of negative emotions to bombard our soul, which often overwhelm us.

These inordinate expectations, pet peeves and stresses in our life are idols, because we exalt them above our trust in God (Colossians 3:5). We desire fulfillment in areas that are unhealthy for us or out of God's timing or will for our life.

Our adverse reactions to life can be both destructive and informative. The ultimate outcome depends on our attitude, spiritual maturity and the action, which we take because of them.

Prayer:

Father God, teach us to heed the warning of these negative emotions, so that we can meet our physical, mental and emotional needs in ways, which are pleasing to You; we can hear Your truth about Satan's lies and either dispel them or change our focus about them; or we can surrender the idols in our life to You and wait on your timing and will or Your wisdom on dealing with the root cause of our negative emotions.

Remind us to schedule quiet times throughout our day, regardless of the amount of time we can make for them, so that we can take an inventory of our physical, mental and emotional health. Strengthen our inner being by Your Holy Spirit to hear Your wisdom from Christ in us in order to bear with, to change our focus about, or to deal with these issues. We trust You to care for us.

Thought for the Day:

Although we live in this earthly world, we exist in the spiritual realm; God gives us spiritual weapons to pull down strongholds, cast down Satan's lies and anything else, which attempts to exalt itself against the Truth of God as God's Spirit enables us to bring every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ. - 2 Corinthians 10:3-5