Battles of the MindWritten by Joyce C. Lock
Some thoughts on high blood pressure: cause and cure.If God is truly God and in control of all things, then battles we face, whatever they be, are really only in mind. Satan is like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour. The only power Satan has is to roar, except we give him power over our minds. Whatever we hope to accomplish by carrying weights and burdens is futile. These are yokes God never intended us to carry. The battle belongs to Lord. In some instances, we have to let go of it before He is free to take over. But, whatever case may or may not be, there are times our minds become so worn that Satan seems stronger than we are. In times like these, our vision isn't clear. Satan is never stronger than God is and we are His heirs. Sometimes, remembering truths we have already attained is helpful in calling Satan a liar. My favorite remedy, that works even when I have no strength of my own, is to block out Satan's lies and go to God in worship. Once, I was so far gone that I didn't know problem and couldn't think of a Bible verse. My brain was about fried. I was so low, had no idea why, and couldn't seem to pull myself out of it. I made up this horrible song with whatever words came next. It started like this ... "Satan is a liar. His pants are on fire. The cow jumped over moon." (Pretty lame, huh?)
| | Fear of FirstsWritten by Louise Morganti Kaelin
Have you ever noticed that there is a surge of energy anytime you try anything for first time. Sometimes it's pure excitement, anticipation of good feeling you know you're going to have after you've done it. Sometimes it's nervousness, usually because you don't know exactly how you're going to feel once it's done, but potential good feeling seems more likely than potential bad feeling. And sometimes it's good old-fashioned fear, anticipation that outcome of what we want to do will hurt us in some way, either physically or emotionally. Excitement and nervousness could be considered beneficial (or at least, neutral), in that they don't stop us from doing what we want to do. Fear, on other hand, can be positive or negative. It's positive when it stops us from doing something stupid that could potentially harm us. [I should point out that habitual risk-takers might approach those same events with excitement. This is probably a better way to approach life, as long as common sense is involved!] 'Negative' fear, however, usually just stops us from doing what we want to do, what makes sense for us to do, what takes us closer to our goals. In this case, we're usually afraid of not getting what we want and/or of looking silly/stupid/inadequate while we're doing it. The longer we give in to this fear, stronger it becomes, harder it is to do new thing, and further away from our goals we get. The only thing gained by allowing fear to stop us is to GUARANTEE that we won't get what we want! This is probably pretty obvious to you, but I needed it pointed out to me, so maybe it helps to state it here! When fear is really strong, we sometimes look for deep, unconscious motivation for fear. This trap is particularly deadly because we all have experienced times when our fear WAS rooted deep in our subconscious from events early in our lives. Very often, that type of fear does need some awareness or healing before you can move past it. The trap is that every time you feel a fear that you can't put aside easily, you decide it's deep and you need to do some specific work around fear. This shifts our focus from action we want to take to fear itself. We start thinking about fear, what's causing it, and how we can get over it. The bottom line is that we end up by giving ourselves permission NOT TO ACT! If it's truly not right time for something to happen then, in my experience, it usually doesn't. But we shouldn't under-estimate power of not wanting to look silly or inadequate, and fear that might happen often makes us delay taking action long past right time. How often have you finally done something you'd been putting off and then asked yourself, 'Why in world did I wait so long to do this?' If you can think of a lot of examples, then you've got a classic case of 'Fear of Firsts'!
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