Thinking Straight (Week 24)

I’ve realised over a couple of years that the way you think has a massive impact on your life.

Many times I’ve had hard days but actually the way I’ve viewed them have been highly different. For instance, a lot of weeks I am doing daily routine tasks that don’t really change  but then my attitude to them can make them sometimes seem more overwhelming than previously.

If you remember a few weeks back I wrote a post called ‘Still following?’ A few people know that at that time I was going through a bad attack of depression. I know what you’ll say, “Yeah but we all have bad days”. I’d agree with you we all have days that seem to be going a bit downhill. But this wasn’t one of them, it built over several days to which point my life seemed unbearable. Everything felt out of control. I couldn’t even play my guitar or sing, things that come very naturally to me. All I could do was cry, it was like a big pit of despair and anguish had opened up in my heart.

I’ve realised that I’ve had this problem for a few years. It’s my way of protecting myself from life but the problem is it only makes dealing with life worse. I don’t know a lot about depression but from experiencing it (or something very similar) for a while I think it has a lot to do with my thinking.

My thinking was all over the place. Hence the title. Some of this could be down to the simple fact I’m finding it immensely hard to concentrate and engage with things but then I know that I have to train myself to think. It’s gonna be difficult. As one book I read today said, the words we say and believe are imprinted on our hearts. Your heart is your very being, so when negative words are said over you they can have a dramatic effect on how you see yourself. And you know as well as I do that you don’t have to go very far in our society to find someone who struggles with this.

I met my mentor today and she said that at the times you have to live life with the blinkers on. There’s a great verse in the Bible about  taking the path that leads straight ahead and not veering to the left or the right,

Keep vigilant watch over your heart; 
   that’s where life starts.
Don’t talk out of both sides of your mouth; 
   avoid careless banter, white lies, and gossip.
Keep your eyes straight ahead; 
   ignore all sideshow distractions.
Watch your step, 
   and the road will stretch out smooth before you.
Look neither right nor left; 
   leave evil in the dust.

Proverbs  4:23-27

For a long while I’ve taken this as quite a physical verse; following God wherever he leads and not veering away but actually it has a lot of resonance with keeping a sound mind and straight thinking. There’s a spiritual practice in Christianity called meditation. Unlike Eastern religions it focuses less on emptying the mind and more on filling it with God’s truths. I’m going to start meditating on these truths everyday. It’s going to be hard, it takes discipline, effort and dedication. But after the damage I’ve done by my negative thinking I think a boost of positive Biblical thinking will do a whole lot of good.

Putting thing’s in God Perspective(Week 23)

Like many people when life gets a bit tough, last week I was basing things in my own perspective. But this week I’m trying to live my life in a God perspective way.

 

When things go wrong it is very natural to go inwards. It’s a protection thing, you draw back into your world because the outside world is hurting you. But actually it’s much more beneficial to look to the wider world or more specifically, to God’s perspective on the outside world.

 

For a week and half I was spiralling deeper and deeper downwards into myself and I eventually broke. There’s only so much self-absorption you can handle. We can’t heal ourselves no matter how much we try. Only God can do that. I couldn’t see past my hurt without God’s help; from the Bible and from others.

 

God sees the Big Picture. He created it. He’s in every single atom of it. He’s in every single moment of our lives; past, present and future. He can see beyond the hurt and He can see how to heal it.

 

Opening your mind to God’s perspective is hard because what He sees is far more than we can handle. But He helps us to handle the parts He wants us to a bit at a time .

 

There’s a great version of  Matthew 16:24-26 in the Message,

 

Then Jesus went to work on his disciples. “Anyone who intends to come with me has to let me lead. You’re not in the driver’s seat; I am. Don’t run from suffering; embrace it. Follow me and I’ll show you how. Self-help is no help at all. Self-sacrifice is the way, my way, to finding yourself, your true self. What kind of deal is it to get everything you want but lose yourself? What could you ever trade your soul for?

 

As this shows opening your life to God’s perspective involves sacrifice. Giving up of self is difficult particularly when we’re suffering but it’s the best way to reach our purpose of finding our true selves and living our true lives for God.

 

All you’ve got to do is follow His lead and try living a selfless, self-sacrificing life.

It sounds hard but that’s why the first part of following God is so important because without this everything else has no point.

 

 

 

 

Still following? (Week 22)

I’m going to be honest with you guys,I’ve been having a pretty bad week.

I won’t go into details but it’s been hard to practice what I’m preaching. And that’s the thing, it’s easy to say stuff but when it comes down to it sometimes it’s hard to do it.

The question at the top of the page is something that I feel is being screamed at me at the minute.

Are you still following God?!

After what’s happening around me, my natural thinking would be, why am I? How can I?

It’s this last question that has more prominence at the minute. In the natural,  I really can’t see how I can keep going. I can’t see how I’m going to go forward from where I’m at.

But then God has done it before and as one of my mates told me recently, “Your problems might seem big but God is bigger” And it’s true God has been bigger than so many other things that have gone on in my life. Things that, at the time, felt too big but then God helped me through.

I read last night about a man who wrote out and signed a contract saying that he would follow God whatever happened. It inspired me to think that my situation isn’t as bad as it first appeared. When I was 18 I made a verbal contract with God, “That no matter where he sent me and what happened to me, I’d still follow him.”

As today’s blog shows this is harder than it looks. But I know that by the grace of God I can get through it.

The first step to sorting out a problem is admitting you have a problem. There’s no shame in finding life hard, it is. The shame is in keeping the problem a secret, thinking that you can’t find help because you should be a super hero, a super human. I’m definitely not a super hero and I definitely don’t feel one right now. But God is supernatural- which means he is above the natural situations that life throws at you. Looking to him will keep my head above the natural and help me to walk into his supernatural purpose for my life.

Tell fearful souls, 
   “Courage! Take heart!
God is here, right here, 
   on his way to put things right
And redress all wrongs. 
   He’s on his way! He’ll save you!”

Isaiah 35:4