REMEMBER – “THOUGHTS CREATE FEELINGS”
Proverbs 23:7
“As a man thinks in his own heart, so is he.”
2 Corinthians 10:5 (NIV)
“We demolish arguments and ever pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.”
Watch your thoughts, they become words.
Watch your words, they become actions.
Watch your actions, they become habits.
Watch your habits, they become character.
Watch your character, it becomes your destiny.
A powerful technique for becoming more peaceful is to be aware of how quickly your negative and insecure thinking can spiral out of control. Have you ever noticed how uptight you feel when you’re caught up in your thinking? And, to top it off, the more absorbed you get in the details of whatever is upsetting you, the worse you feel. One thought leads to another, and yet another, until at some point, you become incredibly agitated.
For example, you might wake up in the middle of the night and remember something you have to do the next day. Then, rather than feeling relieved that you remembered, you start thinking about everything else you have to do tomorrow. You start rehearsing situations with people, getting yourself even more upset. Pretty soon you think to yourself, ‘I can’t believe how busy I am” – and then you get stressed over that. Needless to say, it’s impossible to feel peaceful with your head full of concerns and annoyances.
The solution is to notice what’s happening in your head before your thoughts have a chance to build any momentum. “Take those thoughts captive”. The sooner you catch yourself in the act of building your mental snowball, the easier it is to stop. But you must make yourself stop. Just say, “Whew, there I go again,” and consciously nip it in the bud. You stop before it has a chance to overwhelm you. If it’s something you need to do and it’s the middle of the night, write it down on a piece of paper and go back to sleep. You might even consider keeping a pen and paper by the bed for such moments.
There is such a strong relationship between what you are thinking and the way you feel that it is very important that you monitor your thoughts. Don’t just receive any thought that comes to you. Remember, your thoughts come from four main sources:
God
Yourself
Your environment
What you are watching on TV
The devil
One of the devil’s favorite tricks is to throw you a rotten thought and then tell you how rotten you are for thinking it. When that rotten thought comes, just throw it back at him and say, “that’s not my thought – it’s yours, take it back.” The key here is to recognize where the thought is coming from so you can monitor it.
Try to replace the negative thought with Philippians 4:8 – “whatever is honorable, right, pure, lovely, good, anything of excellence and anything worth of praise.” You’ll be a happier person for it!
