Hope When Sad

 

    Sometimes people get sad.  It doesn't matter if you are a Christian or not.  You get sad because you are human and it is a human emotion.  As a Christian, you may struggle with being downcast or disturbed in your soul.  Negative feelings are a signal that something is not right between the mind and soul.  It is something that you should work out with God, but it does not mean you are a bad Christian.

    Sometimes sad feelings hang out in your mental closet making you feel depressed, anxious, or unsettled.  When you are passionate or you have a lot of empathy, the negative emotions can feel crippling.  Sadness is not need to be all consuming.  Feel it, acknowledge it, define it, and work through it.  

    You may feel despair.  It may lead to anger, fear, and depression.  However, you can take control in time.  The longer it has been in your mental closet, the harder it is to remove and destroy the roots.  However, with God's help you can do it.  Chemical imbalance is something very different.  You should seek a holistic doctor if possible and a Christian doctor would be ideal.

    Dark emotions come.  They may be difficult, but remember that you are in control of your emotions.  Don't let them control you.  When your soul is disturbed seek what God is trying to reveal to you.  It may be an indicator that change is about to happen or needs to happen.  Do not allow anger to settle, become hypersensitive, or become overwhelmed.  God is with you in this journey.  

    You are not worthless or hopeless.  Lay what makes you sad and all the thoughts it brings with at the cross.  Pray fervently while pouring out your heart to God.  Allow the Holy Spirit to counsel, guide, and teach you.  Life is hard, but you are not alone.  This thing that is causing sadness will pass.  Endure and remind yourself that God is stronger than your sadness.  Hold onto hope when you are in darkest parts of your journey.

    When you are being challenges you can dive into self-pity or place your hope into God.  Hope is always there.  You just need to see it and embrace it.  Trust God to be able to smile in all circumstances.  You feel sad and still smile, but smiling will help you feel better.  How you talk to yourself will matter in what direction you will take when you are sad.  If you allow it, then God will send people to help you during your time of need.

    Hold onto Jesus because he is your rock.  He will ground you.  You will feel your emotions, but he will help you to see clearly through the emotions.  They do not have to consume you.  Practice telling yourself truth that will make you stronger and feed your hope.

1 Samuels 1:12-18, Psalm 42, 61:1-4, 121, & Matthew 16:13-19

Have Hope

 

    To have hope you have to speak truth into your life.  Talk to yourself, so that you do not fall for Satan's lies.  Test what you believe to God's Word and ask the Holy Spirit to reveal any lies that you are believing.  Recognize the lies, so you can reject them and retell the narrative in truth.  Repeat as often as needed until you really believe it.

    What you speak to your soul matters.  Emotions will only make you tired.  They are important, but not so much when it comes to your mindset and making decisions.  You need God's hope to help you in those areas and confident and energized.  It all begins with salvation and grows as you mature as a true Christian.

    Jesus is your hope that gets you salvation.  The Holy Spirit is your living hope that lives in your soul.  God is the father and creator of hope.  Hope is what keeps you going when the world tells you that you have nothing left.  Hope guides you through the darkness.  It gives you purpose.  It will lead you to security, rest, serenity, and triumph.  

    Your hope will look differently in your life than my hope looks in my life.  That is good.  That means it is personalized to fit the individual's need.  As your faith grows, so does your hope.  If you speak harshly to yourself, then you hope will shrink.  Speak truth without putting God in a box because that only limits what you can experience in life.  

    You can experience horrible things in life, but with hope you can overcome them.  You don't have to live in a mental prison.  Break free and and clean out the mental closet to have freedom.  If you put your hope in God, then it will never be misplaced.  You can depend on Him.  Your soul holds hope in God, the Word, and promises of His love.

    Hope will give you strength and renew your life.  Doing life on your own will only exhaust and crush you.  No one is strong enough to do life on their own.  You need the people God places in your life and you need Him.  Make your mind and soul unshakeable by believing the truth of God.

Psalm 33:18-22, 42:5-8, 62:5-8, 130:5-6, Lamentations 3:22-24, Romans 5:3-5, 2 Corinthians 3:12-15, Colossians 1:24-29, 1 Timothy 1:1-2, Hebrews 6:16-20, 1 Peter 1:3-5

Body Talk

 

    To get what you want in life you sometimes have to do things you don't want to do.  To be strong you need to workout.  To be healthy you need to eat a well balanced diet.  To be highly functional you need sleep.  Want a clean house, then you will have to clean.  To be close to God you have to read your Bible and pray.  If you want to feel attractive, then you have to tell yourself you are attractive.  To be the best version of you you need to do all of the above.

    Your body is God's temple, but it is also your home in life.  You need to take care of it to be a good steward, but it is equally important to appreciate it.  It's ok to wear sweats and still feel attractive.  It is about your perspective of yourself, not just physical appearance.

    The size of your waist does not make you any more or less important to God.  He wants you to be healthy, but He wants you to appreciate His handiwork in personally making you too.  You are beautiful, lovely, and attractive.  God made people in variety, so not everyone will appreciate everything about you, but you don't find everyone personally attractive either.  That is okay.  As long as you believe God about who you are, then that is all that matters.

    Tend to the temple that you are every day.  Do not neglect the personalized gift that God gave you.  That means make sure you do truthful self talk about your body.  Be honest on what you could work on, but appreciate who you are.  Keep your mental closet clean and tidy to honor God.  

    Every once in a while dress up to look your best.  It will make you feel good, but you don't need to do that everyday.  If you feel like you do, then you need to turn that over in prayer.  You may not be seeing yourself clearly.  At the same time do not worship your attractiveness.  It belongs to God and it does change in the different seasons of time.  You can have a good self-image without being vain.

    If you dishonor your body, the home of the Holy Spirit, then you dishonor God.  Your body is a place to worship Him and glorify Him with your words and appreciation.  Love yourself to properly love God.  Once you truly love yourself, then you can love other people the way Jesus loves them.  It is seeing yourself and others the way God does.  

    Trust God's truth that He speaks to you over your feelings about your body, mind, and soul.  God deserves your praise and devotion to be reflected in your mental closet about who you are.  Remove self-centeredness and see yourself as God sees you.  Pray for wisdom and a healthy balance as you go through this journey with God.  Be confident, not arrogant.

Psalm 84:1-4, Isaiah 43:1-4, Jeremiah 31:3-6, Romans 15:7-9, 1 Corinthians 3:16-17, 6:18-20, Ephesians 1:3-8, 2:8-10, Philippians 3:12-16, 2 Thessalonians 2:1-4, & 1 Peter 2:9

What Matters to You?

 

    Do you ever ask yourself what matters to you?  The answer is what is in the center of your mental closet getting the most attention is what matters to you.  If it is God, then ask for wisdom and discernment through this journey of understanding yourself, God, and what it all means.

    The more you push yourself out of the center and allow God to be in the center the more calm your soul will become.  Your heart can sing praise, your dialogue becomes Biblical.  You learn how to take a step back to see the bigger picture.  It is your life, but it is not all about you.  Your faith will show you how to love like Jesus.  Your heart will become more like a servant's than a master's heart.  

    Making room for God means owning that you are not your own god.  You see your weaknesses, frailty, and need for the only true God.  What your put your thoughts on is what will become your God.  If you want God to be the center of your mental closet, then you have to be intentional.  You have to read your Bible, pray, meditate on what you read and scripture based speeches that you hear. 

    It is only a matter of time for what matter most you will be revealed to the world.  No secret stays secret forever.  Take a practical approach.  You can declare that God is your center, but does your actions and lifestyle support that?  Do you speak life into people?  Do you proudly tell others about God?  Are you rude, impatient, or temperamental?

    You are loved and cherished by God.  He made you special.  When life gets hard or confusing remember that, so you can exalt God and not yourself.  If you want God to be the center of your Mental Closet, then you have to build His thrown there.  That will take time and energy, but it will humble you too.  You have to pray daily.  Don't just pray when you wake and go to bed, but when things happen or thoughts pop into your head.  He is available 24/7/365.  Stay connected with God and work toward Him, not against Him.

Psalm 33:1-5, 146:1-2, Matthew 3:11-12, & John 1:22-23, 3:27-36

Discontentment Thoughts

 

    When you are unhappy in life, it is good to turn to God.  He wants to hear what you have to say, but at the same time take a good look at yourself to see what you contributed to the situation.  Things in life are not always good, but do not turn your discontentment into blaming God.  He did not make those events happen.  He did allow them to happen, but only to serve a purpose.  Look within and search to see if the Holy Spirit is trying to tell you why.

    If God is in the center of your your mental closet, the closer you get to His light the more clearly you can see what is going on.  If you insist digging in the dark spots, then it can lead to discontentment.  Not everything happening in your life is about you.  Sometime it is about other people or things happening around you.

    Grumbling and complaining will not bring you closer to God.  It reveals discontent for what He has done in your life so far.  The more you focused that you are the more you will complain.  As you become more God focused the more of the I statements you can clean out of your mental closet.  You can break the habit of discontentment.

    Discontentment stems from selfishness.  You may tend to complain when life is hard, you lack variety, discontented with authority, needs, and disappointments.  Life will never be perfect until you join God.  You have to live in this world, but you don't have to live like the world.  You can see reality and turn to God for solutions.  You can thank Him for what He has done for you up to this point.  You can push your selfishness away and embrace a better perspective: how can I follow Jesus today.

    Use your imagination with honest thoughts to look at the life you want to see for yourself.  Is it all about you?  Or is it about serving, honoring, and bringing glory to God?  It is your life, so you should have some aspect that make you happy, but it should not be all about your wants and desires.  God needs to be in the dreams, goals, and plans.  

    Discontentment and complaining is unattractive.  You will not get any good attention with it.  All you will do is cause problems, division, and grow in your misery.  It will make your world about you, but it will also become smaller and more restricting.  If you are a Christian, then discontentment should never be comfortable to you.

    Monitor the words that come out of your mouth today.  Are they bring life or death into your life.  Are the words revealing good or negative thought patterns?  What do you want to hear?  How can you change today to get to a better tomorrow?  Feed your soul good, lovely, kind words that come from truth.  You will be taking steps for a better tomorrow.  In a week you could have a completely different perspective on certain problems.

Numbers 11:1-6, 14:1-4, 20:2-5, 21:4-5, Psalm 46:8-11, Philippians 2:3-18, & 1 Timothy 6:6-8

Remember God

 

    Your mental closet is full of memories: good, bad, and indifferent.  You have so much going on in your mind it is easy to forget things, sometimes important things.  The one thing that we need to keep in the brightest part of our mental closet is God.

    There are things in life that you choose to remember and to forget.  Some things are forgotten by accident because of what is going on in life at the moment.  Remembering takes good brain function and discipline.  It takes effort to focus.  

    Did you know that God commands you to remember.  In the old testament He commands His people to remember to protect them.  He gave us the Bible to help us remember.  Remembering was treated like a law to God's people.  Today people use sticky notes, phone alerts, and other trivial systems to remember things.  What would people do if they had to go back and actually remember.  The world would probably be in trouble.

    If you fill your mental closet with junk and clutter it gets messy and dark.  If you keep it clean and God in the middle, then you are able to see and remember what you have more clearly.  Remembering becomes easier because you don't have so much chaos in your mind.  You are able to focus on what matters.  

    Remembering God has benefits.  It gives life and freedom to your soul.  It profits your life in making your stronger, love better, and stay in His righteousness.  Remembering God's character can help you get through the hard times.  Remembering the truth helps you walk in confidence in life.  

    If you don't keep God in the most focalized part of your mental closet, then the lies, clutter, anxiety, frustration, and other bad traits will start finding their way into your mental closet.  It will cause problems and lead you toward a lifestyle of sin.  God is the only way to have true inner peace that last.  He can help you clean out your mental closet as many times as needed, but for your sake it is easier to maintain instead of starting over from scratch every few months or years.

Genesis 31:43-55, Exodus 28:9-14, Deuteronomy 27:1-10, Joshua 4, Psalm 77:4-12, & Philippians 1:3

God Centered Thoughts

 

        Your thought closet is full of stories in your mind.  Some you have rewritten to make better.  Some you have allowed to fester making them worse.  Some are just nostalgic, sad, and regretful. It is the stories that make up how you became the person you are today.  

    Your thought closet is full of stories, thoughts, and images that play out when you think of certain things.  When you allow the Holy Spirit to go through your closet to clean it up, then some of those memories will change.  The lies disappear and the truth affect your memories.  The bitter ones lose some of their control.  You may even get to forget somethings making room for happier memories.

    Your memories are a window into your past.  The window needs to be clean so you can see clearly, but you don't need to spend all your time at the window.  Instead focus more on what God is doing in your life today.  Think about what is praiseworthy to God and profitable for your your future.

    Some memories are pleasant and others are painful, but look at them with the Holy Spirit.  He will guide you through them to see how they have either destroyed your life or made you stronger.  When you can see clearly, you can start healing and appreciating even the hard memories.

    Do not be embarrassed by your past.  It is your past.  Show the world how you have changed.  You may have done foolish and stupid things, but if you learned from them then let go of the control that they have in your life now.  Everyone does self-destructive things.  Learn from it and do not allow anyone else make you feel bad or regret because you are not that person any more.

    Speak truth that comes from God to your soul.  This is how slowly your thought closet will be cleaned out and God centered.  Look at all the benefits it makes in your life, even the hard times and bad memories.  Life happens to everyone.  You are not alone.  Find fellow believers that can understand and support you in your journey.  Don't forget to be there for them too.

    Mourn what needs to be mourned, but do not stay there.  Heal and move on to live your life.  Life was meant to be lived, not watched.  Find the beauty and joy in life.  Praise God for every moment of it to make it profitable to be in your thought closet.  

    Give meaning to the pain so you can make it be beneficial.   If you don't it will stay toxic and destroy your thought life.  In turn it will destroy any happiness in your life.  Be aware of how your thought processes affect you today and where they are leading your future.  

    Once your thought closet is God centered, it is time to be there for other people.  Allow your history to become your testimony.  It will lead others to God and help people heal.  Not everyone needs to hear your story or maybe only at the right time.  Some people will not appreciate it or will seek to hurt you with it.  Use wisdom and discernment.  God will lead you to those you can help.  

Psalm 103:1-5, 119:9-16, Isaiah 35:1-4, 61:1-3, &  Lamentations 3:19-24