My last post dealt with some ideas on who to help you move forward through anxiety and fear. It isn’t a fool proof method, because training yourself to believe the good is quite possibly like training to run an ultra-marathon when you’ve been a couch potato your whole life. But, as The Forgiven Wife says, you eat an elephant one bite at a time. And you train for an ultra-marathon one step at a time, one day at a time. And that is how you overcome any issue you need to face in this life. And once you are on the path, you’ll discover that there is a lot of ebb and flow as well. Some days will be great; some days will be not so great and other days will be a right ol’ battle.
But you get through it.
And the one thing that I didn’t mention in my post is the importance of feeding your mind and heart with soul positive information. Information that will encourage you to look at what you should be looking at to get where you need to be in life. Firstly, you can’t run an ultra-marathon by sitting on the couch. Besides for the fact that you need to actually get up and get moving, you need to research a whole lot more – like how much water to drink, rest days, what kind of running shoes, food to eat, etc, etc, etc. All that information that you taking in will change your perspective on running. And thereby aid in preparing you for your run.
But, also because of what The Generous Wife refers to as “The Tipping Point”. And she explains it so beautifully – the more you counterbalance your current thought life with the opposite, the more the chance the scales will actually tip in in the right direction.
My husband and I were talking about “tipping points” (where you reach a point of critical mass and push over into something new (and hopefully better)) and I went “ah-ha!” In my head I saw a set of scales. On one side were all the sex-negative things and on the other side where all the sex-positive things. At first the negative side was clanking on the counter because of all the mess in my life. But over the years I added sex-positive things and worked very hard to dismiss and push off all those sex-negative things. At some point the positive outweighed the negative and the scales tipped! All this time I’ve been looking for that one thing that was responsible for the change, when it was the cumulative effect of a number of changes that finally tipped the scale. Reference here.
You see, if you want to achieve something – whatever that thing may be – you need to actually get off your, er, behind and get moving. It’s easier when running a marathon, because you can concretely measure how far you’ve come. When you couldn’t run around the blog and now you can, it’s a measurement of the success of the training you’ve implement to get you to the point of running that marathon. Matters of the heart and of the mind, though, are more difficult to measure. And that is why you need to keep filling that scale that will get you to the tipping point. It may be a single event for you – but I suspect that for the most of us, it’s a cumulative effect of a number of changes that you are making and consciously thinking about and reacting to things differently.
One of the posts I really enjoy and keeps reminding me of this fact, is Overcoming Envy by Woman Abiding. I often reread this post, because the truth in it is so profound I need to get my brain in gear sometimes.
- God is in control. Even when we don’t believe He is – He is! And we can trust Him for all that happens to us.
He is over all, in all, and through all. You have what he has provided – no more, no less. You married the man that He chose for you. You have the talents that He specifically chose to give you. All these have been sovereignly ordained, chosen, and predestined by God for your life. Once you begin to believe that God is over every detail of your life, why would you envy what others have and do? Reference here
- Ebb and flow – sometimes we battle and our friends or family are having prosperity and abundance. Sometimes it’s the other way around.
You and I go through waves of trial and ease in our lives. God brings the trials to cause us to grow in character and learn to rely solely on Him. Graciously, He often wraps those times with pads of joyous and prosperous periods. You need not envy those going through the ‘good times’ while you go through your trials. We will all receive our turn to experience both. Reference here
- Believe the best – and take things at face value. Trust the process.
Love believes all things, 1 Corinthians 13: tells us. You need to be a person who chooses to live by this truth. When people say things to you, believe the best about their motives. Believe that they are genuinely sharing some information about themselves or their lives with you, with no ulterior motive in mind. Take their words at face value. Reference here
I do think that the sin of envy affects some more than others, so if you are one who struggles in this area, I pray that you would heed these three effective truths that God has over many years taught me, and confessing your sin to your Father in Heaven, be content with who you are, where He has you in life, and be thankful for the umpteen blessings that He has granted you, rather than focus on those He has granted others.
There are many other blogs I love to visit regularly – To Love, Honor and Vacuum being one. Especially if I am having a bad day, and even when I don’t feel like it, I reread the truth found in Scripture and in these blogs so that I can constantly renew my mind.
Romans 12:2 New King James Version (NKJV)
2 And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.
And that is how you handle whatever you struggle with – renew your mind. With God’s grace, and in His truth, renew your mind.
The Fragrance of Marriage! 