“Change from the inside out involves a steadfast gaze upon our Lord that's life changing because it reflects a deep turning from a commitment to self-sufficiency. Without repentance, a look at Christ provides only the illusion of comfort.”
― Larry Crabb, Inside Out: Real Change Is Possible If You're Willing to Start from The...
I kind of left you hanging with the "Devil's distractions". When you determine that it is in fact the enemy who is attacking, the next step can often be sin. We react in anger, we fall back to our addictions, or perhaps resort to gossip or vengeance. He knows how to get to us. Often times our excuse is, "I can't help how I feel." Years ago a counselor told me, "You can't control your feelings, only your reactions to them." But how do we do this. Feelings are a huge weapon of the enemy.
Let's say you wake up in the morning and everything is going along fine, but on your way to work you see a mother screaming at her child, maybe even gives him a little whack on the head. You immediately begin to think about what you want to say to her. How you want to explain to her how damaging her actions are. How that child could grow up to whack his own kids and so on and so on. Eventually, you find yourself angry. Why if you saw that woman again you would be tempted to whack her, but instead you call in sick to work, run by the liquor store and spend the day in your recliner with a bottle of whiskey. This may seem like an extreme example, so let's try something a little different. Everything is going fine, your on your way to work and as you sit at the stoplight, you notice the couple in the car next to you hanging all over each other, obviously still in the first stages of love. You think about your spouse and how the flame has died. You sulk at work all day, treating others not so well and slacking at your job. You don't answer the phone when your spouse calls, because you know they are just going to want more from you.
This is the way we have always dealt with life. Situations or even thoughts stir up feelings and the next thing we know, we are begging God for forgiveness for the same thing we promised we would never do again, last week. Thinking controls our feelings. What we think about a situation contributes to how we feel. So, how do we fix it? We replace a habit with a habit.
If depression is your biggest battle, make a list of the things that send you into a downward spiral. Is it money, is it a person, or maybe it's some old situation you think about constantly. The thoughts that go through our minds that drive us to sin are usually lies. If you constantly think, "I will never have enough money." Find scripture on God's promise of provision. It's not easy, believe me, because it's breaking a habit. Habits are hard to break and most times they have been in our lives for many, many years. Maybe we are negative, easily give up, or we have been told all our lives we will probably fail. These are old lies the enemy continues to use against us, because they work. When we get angry, depressed, or feel guilty, the enemy has done his job. He knows our weaknesses and he waits for an open door to feed them. Many of us fall for the same lies over and over.
Self discipline. We think of it as disciplining ourselves to not pick up that cupcake or that drink, not to react in rage. Just stop doing it. A child does not "just stop doing it" because we tell them so how can we expect ourselves. Discipline our minds or as the bible puts it, renew our minds. We have to think differently. For instance, if a child were to color on the wall, we encourage them to color on the pages of a coloring book. If we think about what somebody did to us, we take our thinking "off the wall" and turn to the pages of the bible for scripture about anger. Vengeance is mine, sayeth the Lord. We train up our minds the way we would train up a child, the correct way, not the dysfunctional way we may have raised our own. Pretty soon the child is coloring in their book without even thinking of the wall as a temptation, while we are reading or quoting scripture. Scripture is God breathed. Get in there long enough and who knows what you may learn, beyond the lesson you were looking for. Ask God for help. He wants us to renew our minds more than we do. He wants us to go from self discipline to being a disciple to others.
“If we look for ways to get rid of necessary pain, we'll be disillusioned or misled. For people who define real change as the elimination of inevitable struggle, the final chapters will be terribly disappointing.”
― Larry Crabb, Inside Out: Real Change Is Possible If You're Willing to Start from The...
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