How To Make Two Steps To Guard Ourselves For Amazing Positivity
Early this year when you may have set your New Year resolutions, I chose my “one word” to guide me in my life. Surrender.
With close to a dozen family, health and life issues brewing worry, fear, anxiety and even anger were stirring in me. Each situation dug its claws into me when they were starting just a little over two years ago. If I fought back on my own, or ignored them, I’m not sure where I would be today. Nor do I know of what the state of the situations would. But for me, surrender, actions, and mindset all helped me through all of it.
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Family can be messy with conflicts, financial pressures, marital issues, deaths, and illness. When such situations happen, we can live with negative thinking in our mind, and then we find we may not be able to succeed in our life the way God intends for us. Our efforts to do anything positive or can become very hard to achieve because of our mindset.
Negative thinking can cause just about everything in our life to be unstable, including our spiritual life. My assumption number one: we have a spiritual life. I know some don’t.
How To Make Two Steps To Guard Ourselves For Amazing Positivity
Our thought process contributes to our choices, and our choices make our life what it is. This truth likely familiar to most of us is found in the Bible. Proverbs 23:7 says “For as he thinks within himself, so he is.” My assumption number two: we believe in God. Being married to an agnostic, I know not all believe God exists. The knowledge of God and his wisdom will be hard to comprehend particularly when our thinking pattern is unstable. God bestowed upon us a sound mind, but negative thinking patterns corrupt his gift.
With those first unsettling situations showing up in my life two years ago, carrying on the same was no longer an option.
Take a Look at What’s Really Inside of You
Examine Your Heart – Have you inspected your heart lately? I don’t mean what might come and go. Instead, ask (and prepare to accept and be honest with the answers), what things are dwelling within my heart? For each thing you come up with, ask yourself these questions and reflect on the answers:
- Why is this there?
- Is it helping me or holding me back?
- How is it helping me?
- How is it holding me back?
Examine Your Mind – How much junk thinking do you do? In this political and economic climate, we might find both the reporting media and social media to feed us junk thought. How about your life, is it going the way you want it to or need it? If not, there is most likely a connection between your thoughts and the results you’re seeing.
Ditch the Negative Thoughts
Negative thinking is very toxic. It is all around us, but it can also be in us. We may be around people that are extremely negative. Their words can be affecting us and giving off negative energy and causing negative thoughts of your own. These energy stealers are draining the very life out of us. Can you identify the people who are affecting your mindset and causing damage to an otherwise sound mind? When we can identify them, we must put an end to it, or minimize time with them, if at all possible. It’s never that easy if the offending person is a family member.
While removing these energy zappers from our life is a big part of the process of eliminating negative thinking, it alone will not take care of everything.
There is more.
We have to transform our mind and thoughts so that we are not conforming to the worldly patterns of thinking. Easy to say but not easy to do, we have to change the way we think. The Word of God says in Romans 12:2 “And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect.” We can live a successful life and be of service for others when we renew our thinking this way.
Remember, if you are floundering on your own with negativity, God’s Word is a key to your mindset changing and to your life changing.
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Most days I start out with prayer and meditation on His Word, after all, every morning is a brand new slate of possibility. God even tells you “how” to do this. According to Philippians 4:8 God even tells you what to think on to do that. He says, “Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report if there be any virtue and if there be any praise, think on these things.”
My life today is proof of when we begin to meditate on His Word in these ways; we will see our life change. Be encouraged. Be consistent. Change can be slow going, but with God all things are possible.
There are as many ways to positivity as there are people I would bet! What are one or two of yours?