Our Thoughts and Emotions - Part 1 of 3

Image and Text by Christina Morley

All of us have traveled through life and have picked up a number of wounds along the way. For some the wounds inflicted were more terrible than for others. When these wounds are not healed, they begin to impact our lives negatively.

Perhaps you lost a parent while growing up and have always felt the void this left. Or your family didn’t know how to show you love. Maybe you were one of the many at school who felt the stinging words of bullies. Or perhaps you were emotionally, physically, or even sexually abused.

Whatever the wounds, they may still leave you wondering if you are special and if you really matter. Your logic tells you that if you were special and if you did matter then those people would never have hurt you. Maybe you’ve even convinced yourself that you deserved to be treated that way. The devil is the author of these kinds of lies. If you have confused the ill-treatment with your self-worth, then you have acknowledged that the devil is right, and God is wrong.

It’s important that we take inventory of our thoughts and emotions on a regular basis. They impact our lives to a great extent. Some of the things that we carry are too heavy for us to bear. God asks us to cast our burdens on to Him because He cares for us (Ps. 55:22). He knows everything in the tiniest detail and understands all human suffering. There is nothing on this earth that goes by Him unnoticed. If a little sparrow falls from the sky, He knows and cares. Yet, He is never gloomy, and He is not wrapped up in negative emotions.

When our emotions are overpowering us, it’s a sign that something is wrong. The matter only worsens if we try to avoid whatever it is that’s bothering us. Usually, we keep ourselves so busy that we’re out of touch with what’s going on deep down inside.

We complicate matters when we don’t search our hearts to discover the source of our problems. Instead, by running from our pain, we develop “ghosts” that don’t go away. These “ghosts” are unresolved issues that resurface and trigger us to react to situations in an inappropriate manner, like when we blow-up at the slightest provocation or respond defensively when spoken to.

Issues that have not been appropriately handled need to be brought into the light. We have to make the choice to face the real reason behind the pain. By bringing these “ghosts” into the light of truth, we will know them for what they really are. No longer will they be faceless wounds. Instead, they will be known as real hurts with names like “rejection” or “neglect.” As each negative experience from the past is distinguished, the better equipped we’ll be to recognize them every time they rear their ugly heads. Then we can deal with them appropriately.

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Thankful in Times of Opposition – Part 3 of 4

Both Joshua and Caleb had the kind of faith where they were willing to be used by God to make a difference in their society. That’s because they never forgot their origins. They remembered that they were the chosen people of God and that their God was all-powerful. They also chose to remain faithful to God no matter what the cost. That included standing up to popular opinion. Everyone else, except for Moses, wanted to listen to the ten spies that had come back with a fearful report. Joshua and Caleb tried to persuade them differently, but to no avail. The discussion got so heated that the people threatened them with stoning.

How do you feel when others put you down or scorn your Christian faith? Do you wilt away, hoping that they won’t take notice of you in the future? Or do you stand up taller and smile brighter knowing that you’re an heir and a ruler in the family of God?

People will take notice of you, and they’ll want to know what your secret is if you’re willing to have the attitude of Joshua and Caleb. God created you with enormous potential. As you meditate on what God says about you in the scriptures, then you won’t have to worry about what others might think, say, or do.

Part of living out your faith includes having to go against the regular flow of society. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. said, “Most people are thermometers that record or register the temperature of majority opinion, not thermostats that transform and regulate the temperature of society.” We know that Dr. King stood for what he believed in despite all the threats and criticisms that he had to face.

You have to decide if you will be the thermostat and transform society or just another thermometer. Will you make yourself available to be used by God to make a difference in the lives of others around you? Do you believe that with God you have the potential to make your life and future a success?

Perhaps you’ve lost yourself in the daily grind of caring for your children, your husband, and your home, and you no longer know who you are. Or, maybe sin and fear are standing in the way of a joyous and faith-filled life.

The Israelites were offered their freedom and a blessed future if they would turn away from their idols and worship and obey God. Instead, they preferred their spiritual and even their physical slavery to God’s gift of freedom.

Don’t be a slave to your family, to sin, or to fear. If you’re going to be a slave, then be a slave to the Lord. The apostle Paul was a Roman citizen and therefore a free man, but he wrote that He was a slave of Christ Jesus. To be a slave of Jesus actually means to be free – free from the bondage of sin and death. The devil came to steal, kill and destroy, but Jesus has come to give us life and to give it abundantly (John 10:10).

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Thankful in Times of Opposition – Part 2 of 4

If you have lost your God-given dream or never dared to have one, I’ve got good news for you. God hasn’t lost it or forgotten it. Your past failures and disappointments don’t have to hold you back from living out your destiny. God uses the positive as well as the negative experiences to shape your future.

God is not looking for flawless people but for real people willing to offer their strengths and weaknesses for His service. Perhaps Moses seemed an unlikely candidate, but God wanted him because he had become a humble man and was therefore ready for God to use. He was used mightily in signs and wonders and on such a dramatic scale. Perhaps an even greater achievement was that God used him to write the first five books of the Old Testament.

God believed in him before all of these great achievements had taken place. God could see what no one else could even imagine. And because Moses obeyed, the unimaginable happened. Yet the Israelites didn’t believe in Moses the same way God did. They didn’t fully trust him as their leader. They also didn’t trust God Almighty. How come? Wasn’t it obvious that God was someone they could trust? Wasn’t He the God of their forefathers, of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob?

Well, a long period of slavery took its toll on them. They were stripped of their identity as God’s chosen people and, for most of them, their Jewish faith had become a thing of the past. Many of them by now were following the idolatry of the Egyptians. They did so because idolatry was more tangible to them than an obscure God.

God was dealing with people who had forgotten who He was, and they needed proof in order to believe in Him again. That’s why God performed such awesome miracles in their sight. He was also demonstrating to the rest of the known world that He was the only God; there was no other god beside Him.

No matter how many times God proved Himself to them, they continued in their fear and unbelief. As you already know, because of this, almost an entire generation never inherited the land that was promised to them.

Ongoing sin in their lives, for which they never willingly repented, as well as their past slavery, caused them to see themselves as weak and powerless. They didn’t believe that they were able to make a difference in their world. Ultimately, they didn’t believe that with God they had what it took to make their lives and their futures a success.

Of the first generation that originally left Egypt, only Joshua and Caleb ever entered the Promised Land. They helped the second generation take hold of their inheritance because they had refused to succumb to fear and unbelief.

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Thankful in Times of Opposition – Part 1 of 4

What was going on in the hearts and minds of the Israelites the first time they wanted to enter the Promised Land? With the exception of Joshua and Caleb, the people’s hearts were gripped with fear when they saw what stood in their way. The people of the land were mighty and God’s people felt small, so they lost confidence in themselves. They doubted Moses, and most of all, they doubted God. They had a hard time believing in others, probably because they didn’t believe in themselves.

Fear crippled them and prevented them from possessing the land by faith. Fear also kept them from experiencing God’s abundant love. Fear is the opposite of love. The two cannot coexist. Fear operates through unbelief, and love operates through faith.

It’s understandable that the people didn’t respect Moses much. They hardly knew him as a leader, and what they knew of his past hurt his reputation.

Imagine yourself living a slave’s life and one day finding out that one of your own people had been adopted by the Pharaoh’s daughter and raised as a prince. For the first forty years of his life Moses was sheltered while his fellow Hebrews suffered under the bonds of slavery. If Moses’ luxurious life didn’t make you jealous, then what happened next might make you think he was unworthy of respect.

His whole life took a dramatic turn when, in a moment of self-appointed heroism, he killed an Egyptian for beating a Hebrew. Then, when his cover was blown, he went on the run. For the next forty years, he lived as a fugitive and worked as a shepherd. From the pleasures of palace living to the harsh realities of desert dwelling, Moses not only looked, but also felt, like a failure.

Just before Moses killed the Egyptian, he knew that he was meant to do something great for God. But after another Hebrew blew his cover, he realized his zeal had been misguided and fled the scene. This incident so crushed his pride that his dream and passion died with it.

When God got hold of him forty years later, he thought God had the wrong man. He not only didn’t jump at the offer to lead the Israelites to freedom, he even declined it. Maybe you have felt like Moses. Maybe you have stopped believing in yourself. However, no matter how bad your past might seem to you, God is in the business of giving second chances.

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