Saturday, January 22, 2011

Negative Spirals



Low pressure system over Iceland. Image from NASA, taken on 2003-09-04. http://visibleearth.nasa.gov/view_rec.php?id=6204

I want to write about negative spirals because I seem to have little or no control of my thought process at the time. The endless cycle would go something like this: Sin, then self condemnation, to discouragement, to unforgiveness, then back to sin. What if I could change this? What if I didn’t do this any more? Was this even possible and what would that look like?

This whole process can be short circuited or stopped. It would look more like this: Sin, ask forgiveness, forgive myself, and move on. I suppose this is the way it goes if you are a normal human being, but for me, for years I would go through these negative cycles. I don’t believe that this is God’s will for anyone. How can this bring glory to God? It can’t and doesn’t. How do you stop this?

First, I would say that you should pray and ask God for help recognizing this. Second, when you realize what you’re doing, stop and ask yourself: does this kind of  thinking bring glory to God? Third, I used Tommy Newberry’s Five Questions to help me learn how to think differently.

These questions are based on Philippians 4:8. A 4:8 question is any question which extracts a positive answer. Examples are: Who are Five people who love you the most? What are Five things you’re good at? What are Five things you’re looking forward to in the next week? What are Five things you’re grateful for right now? What are Five of your strengths or positive traits? Any question which gets you thinking about what is true, good, and right; things that are pure and lovely, and good things in others; and anything you can praise God for and be glad about is a 4:8 question.

Keith
Pressing On With Excellence

Saturday, January 8, 2011

Spiritual Brillo® pads

Let’s talk about relationships. We all have them. The way I see it there is three types of relationships that I have; with God, others, and myself.

 I have a relationship with God.  That’s what the tools are all about. They are designed to remove blockages and to grow my relationship with God.

I have a relationship with others. If that relationship is stressed then my relationship with God is blocked. God is present in others and one way he speaks is through others. If I’m mad or judgmental or criticizing or complaining about someone then I’m effectively putting up a wall between myself and God. I sometimes think God puts people in my life that are like a spiritual Brillo® Pad. They just rub me wrong or we just don’t see eye to eye. Anyway, God uses these people, Christian or not, to help me to become a better person. I used to sit around and complain about these people until I realized that God was using them to shine me up for him.

The third relationship is with myself. This is really not often looked at. Yes, I do have a relationship with myself. I believe we all do. I talk to myself all day long and I have found that if my relationship with myself is messed up, it too will have a tremendous effect on the others. For instance; if I have unforgiveness towards myself I become bitter toward others. I may be easily offended, or become angry when they don’t perform the way I think they should. This is really a pride issue, but I think it also stems from unforgiveness. But it causes me to be judgmental and insecure. (If someone makes me mad there’s a pretty good chance that there is something in that person that reminds me of myself.) And if I’m not right in any of these relationships. It will mess with both of the others.

What’s the tool to use to fix this. Well, here’s what I did. For example: I would be driving down the road and someone would merge and cut me off. I would be mad. And it would go something like this: I would call them some name. Then I might even make a gesture. Then, I would realize that this is not the person that I want to be so I would ask God to forgive that person for being an idiot and I would ask God to forgive me for judging that person. Then I would say out loud to myself, “Keith, I forgive you.” It took around six months of this before I realized that when someone would do that it didn’t hardly bother me any more.

 Self forgiveness is one of the biggest tools that I can use to improve both my relationship with others and God. How are you doing at forgiving yourself? Do you think about your relationship with yourself? Do you have your own tools for forgiving yourself that you could share with me?

Pressing On With Excellence,
Keith

Saturday, January 1, 2011

A Look Back

This has been the hardest blog for me to write because I want to stay positive, but I know that there has been a lot of people that have gone through some rough times this year.

Well now that we’ve talked about staying in the moment in the last post, and because it is coming upon a new year, I want to look back a little at the past year. Maybe it didn’t turn out the way you thought it would.

But I also know if you look hard enough you can find good. Pain can be good sometimes. God uses it to draw us to himself. Have you gone through some pain this past year? Did you take that pain to the Great Physician? He wants to heal your pain and bandage your wounds.

I had an over all good year this year. I was able to meet some goals that I had made at the end of last year. I pushed myself further than I thought I could go. I took up a new hobby that I never thought I would. I was able to get in the best physical condition of my life as an adult. And I paid off some debts.

After that I injured my back and was off work for 2 months. So, I had a little of both good and bad. I believe the good has outweighed the bad. I’m sure that I know God better now than I ever have in the past.

I sometimes think that God wants to be involved in the good in our lives. It’s easy to run to God during the bad times, but do you include him in the good times as well? Thank Him for all that he does. Have you ever praised God in the bad times? It’s hard to do and seems counterintuitive, but I believe that God wants us to. For me it seems weird, but if I trust and praise him in the bad times I don’t have to stay in the pain as long. God is God and he allows us to experience pain. When we learn to run to God in our pain, it helps us to have empathy for others and to grow closer to God.

“Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God.” 2Corinthians 1:3-4 (NIV)

Keep watching, God has good things ahead.

Pressing On With Excellence,
Keith