#MorningMessages - How to make the best out of the worst situation.

Today, we’ll be speaking about our thoughts, this is just the first one of the series! I hope you’re blessed by this and that by the end of the series we'll all be able to think positively.

For me, my relationship with God started to gradually change when I made an active effort to be conscious about the thoughts that were going in. I realised, that in this day and age where anxiety is the norm and worrying is second nature that I couldn’t let my thoughts get the better of me. That I couldn’t let what’s going on news completely overwhelm me. This is why, I wanted to embark on this journey to change my perspective ( and of course I thought let me bring you guys along with me!). When seeking to change our perspective, it’s important to look at the word has to say on this.

Today’s Key Scripture: Romans 12:2

“Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.” This does a great job in outlining two foundational concepts relating to our thoughts and this will form the basis of today’s devotion.

1. The first thing it does, is state the problem : as human beings we think as though we are of the world. We tend to forget that we’re kingdom kids and as kingdom kids we are distinguished from the ‘patterns of this world’. The only problem is our perspective. Let me elaborate, the world tends to feed us with information on how to live, what do or who to follow. Primarily its fixated on current affairs and how we should respond to it. This actually makes so much sense, because as humans we deserve to know what is going on in our world and what exactly this entails as this is what we would base our actions on. But what if I told you this is partially false - we actually have a choice on what exactly we count as ‘knowledge’ and more importantly what our source of knowledge should be. I think one big choice we have to make is - “are we going to let what’s going on in the world affecting our minds & how we think???”. This to me is an important choice and it’s also a choice that sounds very very ideal in theory but how exactly do we practically change our thoughts from what we’ve always known? Are you suggesting that I ignore my sources of anxiety and worry? Thankfully, the latter part of this bible verse address this.

2. It provides us with the answer— God

Paul gives us direct instructions to ‘renew our minds’, but what does this renewing actually mean? Well, the Greek word for renewing is anakainōsis, which means to cause something to be new and different - in other words. To renovate, I.e. to take what we already have and to change it to a preferable state. And personally I just love this, because it’s not saying that we should completely ignore our thoughts but its saying, let’s change the perspective and fix it on something less temporary by renovating it. Taking what we already have and revamping it. I think, this even ties into the fact that we obviously live in the world & we can’t neglect that, but we do have an advantage and that is God and his word. The answer is me changing the way I think about the situation. A big part of this, is my intentions. I need to start being intentional with what I put in mind. The more I allow there to be space for negative thoughts, the more I allow there to be room for the enemy to feed into these thoughts and to deceive me into believing his facade is reality. The more I allow there to be room for fear, the more I believe this reality - when this ceases to be the case. Right now, we all undoubtably have hardships of our own that we’re facing - whether this be the c word, loneliness or anxiety - literally it could be anything. Despite this, there is good news - there is hope because for every negative thought, there is a positive one. Let’s take fear for example, the opposite of this is faith, so every time I’m feeling fearful I’ m going to fix my eyes on what the word has to say about faith. I might not believe it, but this is where the power of declaration comes in. Honestly, we have to faith it till we make it! Remember that fear is literally False Evidence Appearing Real.

Today’s Encouragement

So today, we have a choice on whether we’re going to make the best out of the worst situation. Will we let our thoughts consume us and dictate our next move or will we surrender these thoughts to God to take control of it? Will we say Lord I’m not sure what’s going on, I am feeling xyz but today I’m going to make the choice to fix my thoughts on what the word says. This isn’t to undermine the reality of my hardship and thoughts, but this is me realising that for every problem there is a solution and my solution is you Jesus. I choose you.