Thinking.


It is so easy to feel that one is "good enough." Our culture's influence seeps into my thinking more often than I'd like. It is always startling to find I've been thinking incorrectly. Like the thought that I'm a good person, that's good enough. Wow, I know that isn't true. I was a fallen being, a sinner, separated from God. Only knowing Christ and trusting what he has done for me, by his grace am I made clean in God's eyes. That doesn't simply mean coast along through life though.

My thoughts are my greatest struggles. I seem to have a constant flow, a never-ending roller coaster of thoughts. Sometimes it doesn't even shut off while I sleep and I dream so vividly. So that may be normal, perhaps for a woman but as a believer there is a place for the Holy Spirit to work in me.


"Let the peace that Christ gives control your thinking, because you were all called together in one body to have peace. Always be thankful." --Colossians 3:15 (NCV)


"We fight with weapons that are different from those the world uses. Our weapons have power from God that can destroy the enemy's strong places. We destroy people's arguments and every proud thing that raises itself against the knowledge of God. We capture every thought and make it give up and obey Christ." --2 Corinthians 10:4-5 (NCV)


My longings get in the way of my walk with Christ. I've set them up on a pedestal that has to be broken down repeatedly. Don't get me wrong, they are not sinful longings, of and in themselves, but I let them consume my every waking thought. Arg.


"How can we be sure that our longings are godly? We can examine their source. What needs do they spring from? What purpose will they fulfill? If they exist to satisfy our own insecurities and plans, we need to reconsider them. They should spring from a love of God and His Word. When they do, they will be fulfilled. God has promised." --Chris Tiegreen in One Year Walk with God Devotional


Praise the Lord that God's not done with me yet!


Alissa

Comments

  1. Amen! I have been so thankful that I am being conformed to the image of Christ and that I am forever progressing toward that. It's nice to know that I won't get worse, ya know? ;)

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  2. Sheree8:12 AM

    Man, Chris Tiegreen's comments are amazing! Time and again, he (through the Holy Spirit) just nails it! I appreciate your transparency, sweetie!
    Hugs! Mama

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  3. I just read Col. 3 today which starts with the heading "Holy Living". I found myself thinking and writing the same thing: my thoughts on how good I am have sure changed as I've gotten older.

    As to the thoughts, have you read Oswald Chambers' thoughts on fretting? Maybe you've already seen this but I'll share anyway. I had read it years ago and written it down and then a woman at Bible study shared it this week and reminded me of it. So now I'll pass it on again. God has sure worked on me in regards to worry, anxiety, and fretting. Always a struggle, isn't it?

    "Fretting means getting out at elbows mentally or spiritually. It is one thing to say "Fret not," but a very different thing to have such a disposition that you find yourself able not to fret. It sounds so easy to talk about "resting in the Lord" and "waiting patiently for Him" until the nest is upset - until we live, as so many are doing, in tumult and anguish, is it possible then to rest in the Lord? If this "don't" does not work there, it will work nowhere. This "don't" must work in days of perplexity as well as in days of peace, or it never will work. And if it will not work in your particular case, it will not work in anyone else's case. Resting in the Lord does not depend on external circumstances at all, but on your relationship to God Himself.

    Fussing always ends in sin. We imagine that a little anxiety and worry are an indication of how really wise we are; it is much more an indication of how really wicked we are. Fretting springs from a determination to get our own way. Our Lord never worried and He was never anxious, because He was not "out" to realize His own ideas; He was "out" to realize God's ideas. Fretting is wicked if you are a child of God.

    Have you been bolstering up that stupid soul of yours with the idea that your circumstances are too much for God? Put all "supposing" on one side and dwell in the shadow of the Almighty. Deliberately tell God that you will not fret about that thing. All our fret and worry is caused by calculating without God."

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  4. What struck me the other day was how my weaknesses, longings, etc. are what drive me to the Word every day. I am always desiring to be rid of my weaknesses, but if they are keeping me in the Word....

    I love you, Alissa!

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