An Unveiled Mirror

I want to be an unveiled mirror, reflecting God's glory to the world all around me (2 Corinthians 3:18). There are issues in my life that prevent this from happening - they come from my fleshly, carnal nature and shroud me in a veil.

My spirit is regenerated, but my soul is not completely sanctified yet. I still have issues that prevent God's glory from shining from within me. Fears, insecurities, feelings of being overwhelmed, discouragement and an intolerance for change all block Him from being foremost in my life.

I no longer obsess over the issues that cause these negative emotions, but some of them are still in my subconscious mind, blocking the glory of God from fully shining out from my spirit.

God reveals these issues to me one at a time throughout my years of spiritual growth in Him. Sometimes one issue will solve the problem with other issues, so that we cast a net over them all at one time.

For instance, fear of change is connected to the fear of destitution. I falsely believe that as long as I maintain the status quo, I will be safe. There are just too many variables in life to maintain any status quo for very long. Life happens - and when it does, it often brings change and adversity.

So, if I lay down at God's feet this idol of wanting to stay safe, He can fill me with His faith that believes that even in adversity, God is my constant companion and champion (Luke 24:13-35). He never leaves or abandons me (Hebrews 13:5).

This builds my faith in His faithfulness, so that I can view trials as adventures and seek God's purpose even in the midst of them. Maybe He has someone for me to witness to, or a lesson for me to learn, or some ulterior motive that He may never reveal to me.

The more time that I spend in God's presence, the more I allow Him to change my personality to His fruit, the less control I attempt to maintain over my life, then the quicker He is able to sanctify my soul and the more of His glory is revealed in me.

Prayer:

Father God, You love us with Your everlasting love and draw us close to You by Your loving kindness (Jeremiah 31:3). I ask Your Holy Spirit to control my every thought, word and deed for Your glory (Colossians 3:17). Grant us according to the riches of Your glory, to be strengthened with power through Your Spirit in our inner being, as Christ dwells in our heart through faith (Ephesians 3:16-17). 

Root and ground us in Your love, flood us through all of our being with all of Your fullness, oh God; so that we may have the richest measure of Your presence and become a body wholly filled with You (Ephesians 3:18-19, Amplified Bible).

Thought for the Day:

The Lord has searched us and intimately knows us, even when we sit down and when we will get up and walk around again; He understands our thoughts, even the ones we will think in the distant future; He knows every detail of our life and is acquainted with all of our ways. - Psalm 139:1-6 

Surviving Our Past

During the formative years of our life, many of us experience physical and emotional wounds perpetrated by family, neighbors and friends of our family.

These events caused parts of our soul to splinter off and embed in our subconscious mind. We are disjointed and incomplete, because our basic human needs in these areas were never met.

Some of us barely survive our past experiences, and we drag the wounds with us into adulthood. Victimization took away our choices and we feel trapped.

We even mistreat our self by either putting our needs last and allowing other people to take advantage of us, or punishing our self with further pain and neglect, or becoming obsessed with our own needs and walling our heart from further hurt by shutting down our emotions and becoming self-sufficient.

We may allow the demon of perfectionism to control our life, because we fear further rejection or feel the need to earn love and acceptance; or we may adopt a lackadaisical and carefree attitude, unthinking and callous to the needs of others.

God leads us on the path of healing through sanctification. As we embrace the parts of our soul we left behind, we experience a wholeness and completion, which we never thought was possible (Colossians 2:10-15).

We integrate the pieces of our self, which we rejected in our past, and learn to relate to people and the will of God for our life as healthy individuals who are growing in the grace of God. ( www.theophostic.com )

God teaches us to set boundaries in our life to prevent future abuse and gives us a new heart in order to love others as He loves us.

God's healing in our life sets us free to shed the shackles of negative emotions and to be more aware of living fully in each present moment with unceasing prayer and by walking in the Spirit.

Prayer:

Father God, You were right there with us during those times of abuse and neglect in our past. You understand our thought processes now and the negative emotions, which plague our life. You became a man and died for us. This act of selfless love now gives us the sense of being valued and unconditionally loved.

As we align our self and our beliefs with Your Word, we find fulfillment in this life, which we never thought possible on this side of heaven. You supply all of our needs according to Your glorious riches (Philippians 4:19). You restore our soul, anoint our head with oil, set a table for us in the presence of our enemies and our cup overflows with Your blessings (Psalm 23).

Thought for the Day:

We can relinquish the need to control life and other people in a misguided attempt to keep our self safe from further abuse and neglect, when we insist on taking part in decisions which affect our life, and trust God to work out even the worst circumstances for our good - Romans 8:28

Trapped in Our Subconscious Mind

 
 

The soul is our mind, will and emotions, or I like to call it our thoughts, choices and feelings. When life happens all around us, it registers with our soul.

We analyze the occurrence with our thoughts, decide how we feel about those thoughts and then make choices according to our thoughts and feelings.

We tuck away many of these experiences in our subconscious mind, never even giving them any conscious thought at all. This happens in a matter of seconds. Yet, these stored memories affect our choices for the rest of our life.

Our soul often attempts to draw our attention to these memories through dreams, negative emotions and bizarre beliefs. We need a resolution for them or to make a decision about them.

We can continue to ignore them and allow them to fester like a blister in our soul, or we can confront them, find God's truth about them and find freedom from the trouble they cause.

The easiest and most lasting way to heal our soul is to journal our thoughts and feelings - uncensored and unorganized; any way they come to mind, just write them down that way.

Underline all of the negative thoughts. Which topic is the most prevalent? That is the biggest lie by which Satan is keeping your soul captive.

Pray about that negative mindset and ask God to show you where it came from. Is it attached to a memory, or more than one incident in the past? It may have been a simple insignificant comment by a significant person in our life.

Ask God to tell you His truth about this issue. Now, use that truth to help you to change your focus about the issue. Ask yourself how you feel about that negative attitude now. It should diminish in intensity.

If it is not totally gone, then pray about it again and take time to listen to God's truth about what He shows you. Repeat this process until that emotion no longer bothers you and then go on to the next negative emotion.

This may take minutes, hours, days or even months. You may not get resolution during your prayer time; but it may occur when you wake up some morning, or while cooking a meal or carpooling the children. God speaks in His own time and way.

Prayer:

Father God, thank You for caring about soul as well as our body and spirit. You are our great God and our great King and You rule over every principality and power in heavenly places. Thank You for teaching us that spiritual warfare is a very real occurrence in life in this earthly realm, and for giving us Your Spirit to take authority over Satan and his demons.

You set us free from the negative world of thoughts and events, which plague us. You capture us for Your glory and You use us in Your Kingdom all the days of our life in this world and in the next. Thank You for redeeming us, transforming us and using us according to Your will.

Thought for the Day:

The object of prayer journaling is to persevere in prayer about each negative emotion until God resolves them for you and you are free from the tyranny of the past; you will feel lighter, happier and more at peace with God, yourself and with your personal relationships.

 

Freedom from the Tyranny of the Past

Our whole life consists of relationships with our loved ones, acquaintances, co-workers, neighbors, authority figures, friends, family members and even with our self.

We have a chance of receiving wounds and/or blessings from all of these associations; and our past, even our subconscious conflicts, influences each of these interactions as well.

Our relationship with our self includes our body, soul and spirit. Our body has internal and external influences, our soul includes our thoughts and feelings and choices, and our spirit is either dead in sin or free in Christ (Colossians 2:13).

Events in our life, involving this multiplex of individual influences, add flavor to or diminish our joy in life. The way people react to us helps to form our concept of our self. We learned to love or despise our self from their actions and opinions.

Subconscious memories of these interactions continue to create our self-concept and the way we relate to people as an adult. We may live with a wounded, defensive attitude or a carefree, happy outlook or an angry, combative defiance.

Trauma changes the way we see our self and our future. We can diffuse and disarm these subconscious memories and the way they affect our relationships today by surrendering our life to Jesus Christ.

We do not have to blame current issues on our self or anyone else. They usually occur from woundedness in one or both of us. Issues in adult relationships often stem from childhood suffering; but childhood wounds do not have to control our adult life.

We can learn a new way to set up boundaries, exercise discernment, stop victimization, redefine our attitudes, change our behavioral patterns and gain a new perspective on priorities and what is important to us by allowing God to expose Satan' lies and to renew a right spirit within us (Psalm 51:10). ( www.theophostic.com )

Prayer:

Father God, You want to create a clean, pure, simple heart within us; one not tainted by the world and painful experiences, but one of freedom in Christ (John 8:36). You delight in setting our soul free from the pain of the past and giving us a bright and promising future (Jeremiah 29:11). Teach us that when people are not trustworthy, we can still trust in You.

As children we were more vulnerable and had fewer choices in the actions perpetrated on us by others. As adults, we can take a more active role by surrendering our future to You and listening to Your Spirit each moment of the day. Thank You for giving us Your wisdom in place of our human reasoning and for teaching us to have boundaries and how to ensure that we have input into our daily experiences.

Thought for the Day:

Our past has power over us only if we give it permission to do so; coming to Christ for healing helps us to find freedom from the tyranny of the past.