What Are You Thinking About Yourself?

     It’s often difficult for me to think great things about myself.  I find it even more difficult to say great things about myself.  I don’t mean in a cocky, conceited way but in a “I know who I am” way.  I’ve found in my experiences it’s much easier to think and say the not so great things I see about myself.  Let me be clear, I’m not saying we should look at ourselves with rose colored glasses all the time.  Rather, I am saying we should learn to speak life to ourselves and not death.  But the reality is, we know ourselves better than anyone does outside of God himself.   Which means, if you’re anything like me, we have an extensive record book of the things we didn’t, don’t, and probably won’t do right.  I was sitting in Barnes and Noble one day and I began to think about my life.  About all the experiences I’ve had and all the people I’ve met and known along the way.  As I sifted through my life, I quickly began to find myself lingering on the parts of my life where I clearly missed the mark in the greatest ways.  The dwelling on the past mistakes wasn’t the worst part.  It was when I began to say things to myself about my lack of greatness.  Allow me to get real vulnerable for a second.  I think things about myself, many times that I would never tell someone or ever say out loud.  Harsh things that I know are absolutely not true, but still overwhelm my mind sometimes.  Those decaying thoughts would change my entire day.  I’m thankful for the grace of God and how he has brought me through.  I pray what I have learned can help you if you’re like me.  There are two concepts I’ve learned that I believe will encourage you and help you.  One is a very spiritual concept and one is a very practical concept. I have to forgive myself and I have to put 2 Corinthians 10:5 into practice on a daily basis.    

     I’ve discovered the reason these negative thoughts linger is because I actually feel bad about my mistakes.  I wish I hadn’t made them, and for me the worse of it all is that I wish I hadn’t enjoyed many them, because I did.  But God began to show me that he had forgiven me and I needed to forgive myself.  He said, I told you sin would be fun for a season! You see, even though I enjoyed the moments those momentsbrought shame and regret with them.  Now God was saying, receive my grace, forgive yourself, and let it go.  The second thing I’ve learned is 2 Cor. 10:5 which says, “take captive every thought and make it obedient to Christ”.  I understood there were two steps to that; take the thoughts captive AND make them obedient to Christ.  First step was to begin taking control of my thoughts and stop letting them linger!  That was where my spiral would begin.  I had to gain control of how long things lingered in my mind.  If I didn’t, they would stay!  It’s my job to take my thoughts captive! No one else.  If I didn’t do it wasn’t going to get done.  It’s hard to do the first step of taking your thoughts captive well, until you have grip on the second one.  The second step was tougher for me to do because I didn’t understand how.  How do I make my thoughts “obedient to Christ”?  Then I came across this life changing idea to run every thought through the filter of Philippians 4:8.  “Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.”  It’s not easy to do but it will change everything.  When you use that filter, the negative thoughts cant stay.  I would literally stop myself from thinking and say, “is this true, noble, right, pure, lovely, admirable, excellent, or praiseworthy?” If my thoughts didn’t line up, I stopped thinking on whatever I was thinking on and then made them obedient to Christ by thinking about something that did line up with the Phil. 4:8 filter.  Often for me, that was Jesus because he embodies every part of the filter.  (Side note: this can apply to every area of your thought life!)     

     I’ve learned that other than my wife, the words I say to myself carry far more weight than anything anyone else could ever say about me.  I'm guessing that I'm not the only one that deals with these kinds of mind games.  What’s crazy to me is that I don’t really believe the things I say to myself in my head, but when I continue to let those thoughts linger, I start to become less motivated and much more complacent.  Which for me, starts the vicious cycle all over again.  Lingering thoughts turn into graceless conclusions of who I am and who I can become, which turns into complacency and lack of motivation all over again.  We break the cycle by forgiving ourselves of our past mistakes and practicing 2 Corinthians 10:5.  I hope this journey becomes a priority for you because if we’re honest, if the cycle doesn’t get broken, it will destroy us and ultimately keep us from our God given destiny.  I don’t want to miss my destiny and I hope you don’t want to miss yours either!  Sounds dramatic, but it’s real.