False Impression # 1 that can drive a christian crazy!
impression: an effect produced on the mind, the senses
or the feelings . . .
It was Saturday, the end of a hectish week. As the pastor's wife it seemed I had jumped all week long to everyone else's tune but my own. I had executed every expectation placed on me by church members; juggling between their needs as well as the daily duties of the manse.
Exhausted, I sank into a chair, yearning for a quiet moment to myself. I pressed 'play' on the tape recorder nearby, presuming it held a music tape. Instead, I heard a preacher's voice: "The answer to your complaining, dear listener, is to stop thinking about yourself and start thinking of others. Jesus never considered Himself. He sacrificed Himself for others. So get yourself off the pity-pot and repent of your self-absorption; find peace in putting others first!"
My stomach went into a knot and a blanket of guilt settled over me. It became my 'blanky.' I never left home without it! After all, it was 'selfish of me to have my own needs met'!
Thank God for Dr.'s Cloud and Townsend who had 'rightly divided the word of truth' in their book, titled: False Assumptions . Acting upon their qualified reasearch and a careful search of my own in the scriptures on the true meaning of 'self-denial I threw my 'blanky' away! That was eight years ago. It was truly a paradigm shift when I discarded the off-balanced maxim of "God first, others second and self last".
Sadly there are well-intentioned church members who daily practice annihilation of self in order to get the favor of God and of others. They have been 'taught'n'told that God expects self-denial in His children. I see that as a distortion now; a false assumption.
How ridiculous would it be if someone came up to you at the service station and proceed to rebuke you while you're filling your car with gas, : "I had no idea you were so self-centered. You need to pray about spending more time filling other people's gas tanks".
Jesus said 'we are to love (take care of) ourselves.' Paul exhorted Timothy: 'take heed to yourself'. Space does not permit the whole of my research.....so why not do your own study in the scriptures and see 'if these things be so! Maybe, just maybe, you will find the center of balance on God's level !
"Love God first, love you second, love your neighbour next!"
Perhaps God meant: 'put your own parachute on first".
........back to the drawing board!
Worry-warts . . .
Yep !. . . we've all done it at sometime or another.
Worry is a human instinct that doesn't go away.
A worry-wart is 'someone who worries excessively'. Most of us know someone who is good at worrying. I know a lady who worries because there is nothing she knows of to worry about. She travels to every doctor in town trying to find one who will tell her there is something wrong with her. ( hypochondriac happens to be another word for worry-wart! )
I confess to a time in my life when I was a hard-core worry wart. My family firmly beleived I was addicted to it! The good news is that time is the best teacher. In the process of growing older I have 'cottoned on' to the futility of worrying about some things, simply because most of the things I worried about never happened.
Michael Clarkson, in his book: Intelligent Fear...how to make fear work for you, claims " ... the average person has about 66,000 thoughts a day, two thirds of them are worries".
I have found when I worry I engage fear. They stick together like bread and butter.
God urges us not to worry or fear. He knows how destructive those two emotions can be to our mental and physical health.
Jesus said: "Be anxious for nothing....talk to Him...tell him your worries today". Tomorrow will take care of itself.
To trust in God is to have the ability to wait patiently in spite of panic brought on by uncertainty.'
It's a Matter of Opinion...
Everybody has one . . . an opinion I mean.
My opinion is, we are an opinionated society.
Newsmakers and television think tanks argue passionately, pressing their opinion against the other's.
Politicians govern largely by opinions.
Religionists pound the pulpit with humanistic opinions.
Our children are brainwashed with false moral opinions of some educators.
How much weight does an opinion hold, if any?
When is an opinion a true fact?
Whose opinion do we beleive?
I have concluded that the opinion of man is no substitute for the Words spoken by God. Truth is more than a matter of personal viewpoint. The value of an opinion hinges on the thinking of the mind that formed it. Human viewpoints of the unregenerated mind or the unrenewed mind of the regenerated can be wrong. Truth and knowledge must be digged and mined out of the Rock of Truth, Jesus Christ.
He is the 'Word become flesh'. What's more, Jesus puts great stock in what His Father says! Because of that, I dig the opinions of Jesus. I operate much better on the Truth of what He says.
I welcome your comment....
All things are not what they appear to be...
How true it is...!!!
I was given a book sometime ago titled:
FALSE ASSUMPTIONS
Relief from 12 "Christian" Beliefs
That Can Drive You Crazy
It opened my eyes to some things that I had heard over my lifetime and had presumed them to be correct because of those who had reinforced them to me. The writers, Henry Cloud and John Townsend challenges the reader to re-read certain scriptures in their proper context to see if they really mean what many of us have been led to believe they mean.
For instance, Phillipians 3:13 "....but one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forward to those things which are ahead...." was hammered at me many times in my struggle to be free from hurtful childhood memories. I was 'taught'n'told' that it is incorrect for the child of God to bring up and deal with a painful past, based on Phil.3:13.
I took the writers advice and read the complete third chapter of Phillipians. To my amazement and relief, I discovered that Paul was not talking about forgetting past hurts, betrayals and abuses.
Rather, he was referring to an old belief sysytem of religious duties and works that he now realized he needed to let go of. He must now embrace the new plan for forgiveness of sins through the Blood of Jesus. He had been given a revelation that it is no longer done by performing religious rituals of the law. It is now by faith in the unconditional love, grace and mercy of God, shown through Jesus Christ, for all nations and all peoples of the world. The law was given by Moses, but Grace and Truth came by Jesus Christ.
My false assumption of Phil.3:13 all those years had created an unnecessary self-condemnation inside me. I trust you get what I am trying to say. Search out for yourself the things in your belief system. Ask yourself if you beleive them because you were taught them or because they are true!
Monday Musings . . .
Can't beleive it's been a week since my last entry. Sort of proves the biblical point that one does not know what a day will bring forth. Scottish poet, Robbie Burns, was right when he wrote: "The best laid plans of mice and men often go awry! .... but, says I, God always has a back -up plan! In explaining my tardiness I can only say that between friends, family, (the house has been full ) plus emergency visits to the dentist and doctor because of a painful mouth of not just one but many ulcers...thankfully, life goes on and time and medicines and God's grace and mercy get us better.
I received the following short story this morning and I must pass it on to you, my friend. It echoes my own heart today:
Two friends were walking through the desert.
At some point of the journey they had an argument, and one friend slapped the other one in the face. The one who got slapped was hurt, but without saying anything, wrote in the sand:
"TODAY MY BEST FRIEND SLAPPED ME IN THE FACE."
They kept on walking until they came to a river that they had to cross.
The one who had been slapped in the face got swept away by the rushing water and started drowning, but the friend saved him. After he recovered from the near drowning, he wrote on a stone:
"TODAY MY BEST FRIEND SAVED MY LIFE."
The friend who had slapped and saved his best friend asked him, "After I hurt you, you wrote in the sand and now, you write on a stone. Why?" The other friend replied "When someone hurts us we should write it down in sand where winds of forgiveness can erase it away. But, when someone does something good for us, we must engrave it in stone where no wind can ever erase it."
LEARN TO WRITE YOUR HURTS IN THE SAND AND TO CARVE YOUR BLESSINGS IN STONE.
They say it takes a minute to find a special person, an hour to appreciate them, a day to love them, but then an entire lifetime to forget them.
Today, I have purposely made time for you, my friend. You are God's gift to me; I value you.
Speaking of Trivia....
I confess to being a collector of things secular and thoughts spiritual; expressions with an emotional gamut reaching all the way from the silly to the profound. Things that have impacted me at some time or another, scribbled on bits of paper. In thumbing through my Bible today I came across these faded words written in the flyleaf. I do not know their source, but they have to have come from a tormented mind full of unhealed hurts, unmet needs or unresolved issues:
"There are many types of weapons, but the ones that hurt the most, are the weapons made of memories and the deadly midnight ghost. Not all wounds are red and bloody, there are wounds that touch the mind. These are wounds that always fester, they're the never-healing kind. Why are we, who've done our duty, plagued with wounds that never heal? Made by weapons of our memory, which are worse than lead or steel?"
Methinks the answer to the question above lies deep in the unforgiving heart. At the risk of sounding trite, most painful memories can be dealt a final blow with the act of forgiveness. Forgiveness is right and it is refreshing. It closes the wound and leaves no scars. Forgiveness remembers the event, but without rancor or bitterness. My own life began to have some meaning when I gestured forgiveness towards the enemies of my childhood . I can never go back to the bitter moods that ruled me for many years. We cannot roll back the clock. Methinks we must pray the Lord's prayer and mean it. And our time starts.......now!
TRIVIA AND THINGS THINKABLE... OR UNTHINKABLE !
I thrive on humourous trivia! What's more, I don't feel one bit guilty about enjoying light-hearted things. It's the mental pause that refreshes. Lightens me up when I am bogged down. Just yesterday I found this tid-bit of a thinkable thing in the magazine I was browsing through while being bored in the line-up at the check out counter.
The question : "Hoping To Get To Know Someone Better?" was thinkable.
A new study finds that in the early stages of a relationship, sharing pet peeves or negative opinions can bring people closer together faster. Try steering the conversation toward your mutual dislikes instead of what you both enjoy!
Now that's a switch!
My imaginations took off with a giggle, visualizing certain scenarios.....
close encounters of minds with a gripe......that could be laughable or emotionally unthinkable.
That's it for now . . . back to the drawingboard!
Welcome to my blog:
Thank you to those who left your fingerprints on my page yesterday. Of course I am talking about the kind comments you took time to add.
For those who missed yesterdays post and wish to read my first entry into online journaling, you can click on: Extreme Makeover of an Ancient Mindset. The comments are at the end for you to read.
I pledge to be honest and upfront with my thoughts, and hopefully not in any offensive way. I have always believed in the freeing power of truth.
Jesus told us it would set us free if we would know it and if we know it we cannot help but acknowledge it. There is a verse in the Bible that tells us that God "desires truth in the inward parts". The Bible goes further. Ephesians 4 urges us to "speak truth with our neighbour." If you know Jesus, you know the Truth, the Way and the Life.
Thanks for dropping by, neighbour, and have a wonderful day today telling the truth as you know it!
Before you leave, please add a comment....would love to hear your thoughts on how far dare you go in speaking the truth.
Greta
Testing out my new blog...
This is a test...
Extreme Makeover of an Ancient Mindset
“… be renewed in the spirit of your mind…” Ephesians 4:23
A New Year calls for a paradigm shift in some of our mindsets! Particularly for those such as I who come from a church generation that encouraged ‘zipping of the lip’ when it comes to expressing longstanding thoughts and opinions birthed from a not so pleasant past.
First off, my new years resolution in 2006 is to add fresh thought much oftener to this page. I apologize for contributing to your ‘tired of finding the same old thing’ feeling when visiting our website. In fact, I predict that this site will soon contain a link to my personal blog site. I am excited about the outlet it will provide for my overworked mind!
Blogs hold a certain fascination for me. In fact, the word blog itself, the first time I heard it, was, to my religious mindset an ugly sounding word. I definitely had to undergo an extreme paradigm makeover in order to grasp the concept of blogging. The baring of one’s soul on a worldwide level is rather cautionary and somewhat scary to say the least. But at the same time it is a great way to find out the whys and wherefores of what people think and how they think it. To be sure we all think and express our thoughts differently.
For instance, my age changed on New Years day! It has done so every year since I was born! My oldest son emailed me a birthday greeting from across the world and this is what he said about his mother:
“Only a non-conformist would choose to be born on New Years day. I admire you mom…you continue to break the mould. Happy Birthday.”
It took a minute of contemplation but I humbly admit to feeling flattered at his perception of me. It was somewhat of a relief to finally wear a label:
“Meet my mother, the mould breaker”.
I have generally dared to be different in the spirit of my mind. I firmly believe that God is disappointed when we waste the residual power of our mind on narrow mindsets. Sometimes he uses people like me to rattle another’s cage, even if it leads to toppling ‘traditional apple carts’. We are talking about old mindsets that hide behind what they call ‘convictions’. Jesus chided the Scribes and Pharisees for that very mindset. He said it clearly to them: “ You have been taught many things, but I have come to tell you something different.” In other words: “Listen up, boys! You have heard it said, but now I say unto you . . . it’s time to have a paradigm shift, guys. Things have changed. ”
Read all about it in Matthew 5.
