Last week I added a book to my kids' Bible time that I had read a couple of years ago. I knew I needed it for me again and had been planning to jump in with both feet after the New Year. I decided to make this book a twelve week study with my daughters in the hope that my daughters would not follow in my often pessimistic footsteps and learn to follow Scripture by controlling their own thoughts. The book is titled Power Thoughts.
I know my mind isn't right and hasn't been for a long time. For too long I had been lazy about my thought life. I had quit fighting the Battle of the Mind in a purposeful way. When the mind isn't renewed, it is easy prey for Satan. I had let my mind become his garbage dump. I was negative, angry, easily upset and offended, and miserable. The Battle in the mind can't be fought with a half-hearted, casual effort. It's a battle that requires an "all-in", take no prisoners mentality.
I posted about the Lord working with me about having a positive attitude. Positive attitudes don't just happen. Renewing my mind takes work. Breaking destructive, negative thought patterns takes work. I was finally in a place where I realized that I didn't want to spend my life upset, angry, and miserable all the time. I want peace and joy, the kind that only the Lord can provide.
We are on Power Thought #3 in our homeschool. Even Megan, my seven year old is listening in and memorizing the Power Thoughts. It's kind of neat how God has put this in and had it click with our Old Testament study. We are beginning to have discussions on controlling out thoughts, and how those thoughts impact our emotions, our actions, and out enjoyment of life.
I pray my daughters are absorbing the lessons and making these thoughts their own. I told them that the choice is ultimately theirs on what they choose to meditate on in their thought lives. I can only teach them the information, pray they utilize it, and model it for them.
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| A Page of My Notes |
I do my best to not just read Power Thoughts but to put into practice the concepts. I am searching every Scripture reference, taking massive notes, praying, and studying it with my daughters. We are going through one Power Thought a week. I am spending hours working on this, training my brain to think differently. It has come down to me deciding that I don't want to spend my life unhappy, sorrowful, depressed, and feeling like a victim of all the bad things that have happened to me. It is so easy to just continue down that path. However, the pain of staying there is intense.
I know the negative patterns in my family. If I can break the cycle of negativity, anger, bitterness, and complaining, my family will be blessed by it. If I can teach my children that they don't have to be that negative, angry person that has been so modeled in our lives, then maybe they will not waste their lives living in defeat and self-pity.
There is a choice before me. It is the same choice before all Christians. Will I choose to dwell on the thoughts that hurt me: the hurts, the offenses, the things that anger me? Will I spend my life upset about a past that is done, people I can't change, situations that are out of my hands? Or maybe, will I choose to be happy, to find the good things, to see the positive?
I have one life.
I'm not saying that the struggles in life that people have aren't real, or that we can just think good things and everything will be miraculously be better. That is a bit simplistic and VERY humanistic. There are very real struggles in life. There is real grief and real loss and real abuse and real sickness in this world. To deny them is not dealing with them, and that makes things worse.
What I am saying is that making the best of life is important. GOD is POWERFUL! I have spent a lot of time praying and realizing that it is ridiculous to live life in such a way that He is shown to have no impact on His children. Where is the Joy that is to be my strength? Where is a life changed because of Christ? What am I teaching my children about the Power of God in the lives of His people?
It may seem odd, teaching a book written for adults, that most consider a "Self-Help" book, to my children in our homeschool. However, if I teach my children that God loves them and then give them the tools on how to renew their minds and the Bible instructs, then I will have given them tools that are priceless and will be with them for the rest of their lives. Learning to meditate on Scripture, to see the best in a situation, to find joy in life and in God, to speak life and not death, to trust in the Lord and not in the world... These are what adds life to years as well as years to life!
I'm not saying that the struggles in life that people have aren't real, or that we can just think good things and everything will be miraculously be better. That is a bit simplistic and VERY humanistic. There are very real struggles in life. There is real grief and real loss and real abuse and real sickness in this world. To deny them is not dealing with them, and that makes things worse.
What I am saying is that making the best of life is important. GOD is POWERFUL! I have spent a lot of time praying and realizing that it is ridiculous to live life in such a way that He is shown to have no impact on His children. Where is the Joy that is to be my strength? Where is a life changed because of Christ? What am I teaching my children about the Power of God in the lives of His people?
It may seem odd, teaching a book written for adults, that most consider a "Self-Help" book, to my children in our homeschool. However, if I teach my children that God loves them and then give them the tools on how to renew their minds and the Bible instructs, then I will have given them tools that are priceless and will be with them for the rest of their lives. Learning to meditate on Scripture, to see the best in a situation, to find joy in life and in God, to speak life and not death, to trust in the Lord and not in the world... These are what adds life to years as well as years to life!
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