Stop. Drop. Roll
I had dinner with a friend last night and we both opened up about these slumps in our lives. We're both in this season of struggle and it's so frustrating because neither of us know what to do. Life gets you down, you become exhausted and bored and are just going through the motions of it. But we were called to live a life that is full and beautiful and wonderful (notice I didn't say easy). This morning at work I was listening to an archive series from back in April of Hillsong London and it was one of those rhema moments where I just felt God speaking directly-to-my-heart. It was about living a victorious life and how our thoughts get in the way of that; how are thoughts and emotions play such a huge part in our life and yet if we don't take them captive and give them to God, we're destined for disaster.
If we want to have victory in our lives, if we want to be victorious, it first starts with us having a victorious mindset; having victory over our thoughts. In having victory in our mind is so important to living victorious. Because everything we do stems for our thoughts. Our thoughts determine how we feel, how we feel determines how we act, how we act determines what we do in life. Gandhi sums it up well when he says “A man is but a product of his thoughts. What he thinks, he becomes.” If we want to be victorious, we have to think victoriously. Our thoughts have the power to influence and control our lives. Our thoughts have the power to dictate and determine the course of our lives. Therefore, one small fearful or negative thought can actually have a huge impact in your life. Now fearful and negative thoughts, they will be present in your life, but I don’t believe they should be precedent in your life. And as Christians, I believe we should have full control over our thoughts, not our thoughts controlling us.
Colossians 3:2 says “Set your minds on things that are above, not on the things of this earth”. If we fix our thoughts on this, fix our negativity and fearful thoughts, and live out of those- we will cause ourselves serious damage. Our thoughts are like sparks, and left alone they can cause serious damage. So what we need to do is extinguish those thoughts before flames break out. How to take control of our thoughts, before our thoughts take control of us:
1.STOP- As soon as a negative or fearful thought comes into your mind, you need to stop. You need to take that thought captive. 2 Corinthians 10:5 “We take every thought captive to the obedience of Christ”. Take that thought captive. Emotions say hurry, whereas wisdom says wait. Your emotions want you to respond immediately, they want you to react but wisdom says stop, wait and think about what you’re going to do next. Before you react on that thought, just think about things for a moment. You have a decision to either add fuel to the fire or to extinguish the fire. So stop. What are you going to do next?
2.DROP-So we’ve taken that thought captive. The next thing we need to do is drop before God and give that thought straight to Him. 1 Peter 5:7 “cast all your caries, your worries, and your anxiety on Him because He cares for you”. Let Him be your first priority, not your last resort. Because what you give attention to, you give authority to. As soon as those fearful and negative thoughts come into your head, start throwing water over those sparks. Start extinguishing those sparks. Because that water is the Holy Spirit. You can ask for discernment and direction on how to deal with these thoughts. The more water you throw on these captive thoughts, the quicker those sparks go out. When you stop and drop in a real fire, you drop to protect yourself, to cover yourself. Spiritually speaking we need to cover our face and focus on God, and solely Him.
3.ROLL- Now we’ve stopped, we’ve captured those thoughts. We’ve dropped before God and given Him our thoughts. Now we need to roll over and move on. Roll over and move on. It’s that simple. Thoughts are much like waves, you can’t stop them from coming, but you can choose which ones you’re going to surf. Be someone who is quick to drop before God, quick to roll over and move on. Don’t dwell on the thoughts you’ve already handed over to God, it’s such a waste. You don’t need to carry certain things, God will carry them for you.
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