The Path Forward - Day 3

Compare your thoughts from yesterday to your Purpose Statement, (if you didn't create one for yourself, see the blog on Stewardship - Monday December 7 2009) and see if it elicits any further thoughts. Again, we are using our Purpose Statement to help keep us focused as we examine ourselves from different perspectives - specifically the areas of our lives where change has occurred.

Prayer: Pray that God helps confirm and direct your purpose in life.

The Path Forward - Day 2

Notice the meaning of James 1:10&11 in the context of the verses before and after. Among other things, it’s evident that the rich man is, by contrast, arrogant and lazy. When the troubles of the world come along, this content and prideful person doesn't have the tools to cope, and as a result, “fades away”. Contrast this with the humble. They persevere and live full, rewarding lives.

As we processed our own humility yesterday, there were likely some things - obstacles, whether large or small, that stood out to us. Our familiarity or comfort with them may have dulled their impact on our lives. Sometimes exploring these things can lead to deeper, unrelated issues. Take time today to process the large and small thoughts you had yesterday. Use the action of confessing these thoughts to God so he can own them with you. Follow them as deep as you can and see where they connect. We might be closed because we think we’re too talented, educated, experienced, or intelligent. We might put too much faith in our opinion of our demographic, family, habits, personality, or even style. It's worth it to see where we hold pride, and how it keeps us from forward momentum in our lives.

Prayer: Pray for motivation and wisdom to discern the thoughts that you process today.

Safety - Day 6

Now that we have processed our negative presences and envisioned a healthy place, think about the good, strong or healthy things that you do have in your life. Can you spend more time on these things to help displace the negative? Are there relationships that you know are good, but have not made a priority for one reason or another? Are there places you have wanted to go or things you have wanted to do but have let other, less important ventures, obstruct you from what you know is best?

As we have mentioned before, it is often healthier to focus more on replacing negativity with something good than to only focus on stopping the negative issues.

Prayer: Pray that God would help you identify and embrace healthy things in your life.

Safety - Day 5

Try to picture your life without the negative presences that you identified yesterday. Really try to visualize what your life would look like if all of your relationships were safe and affirming. What if you had the time you needed to reflect on yourself, journal, pray, or be alone doing something you enjoy. What if you felt comfortable in your own head without thinking about things you regret or things that you fear or hate.

The point here is to try and give ourselves an image of the place where we need to be, in order to deal with change, so that we can strive to be in that place. If we don't know what it looks like, then it can be harder to get there.

Prayer: Pray that God helps you to visualize his next step for you.

Safety - Day 4

Today, identify unsafe or destructive presences that effect your area or areas of change. They may contribute directly as an obstacle, or simply create an environment where change is unsafe. Look first at the presences that may effect you physically or environmentally, then look at the presences that effect you emotionally.

These presences can be relationships, habits, jobs, beliefs, wall color, dirty rooms, influential messages, stressful pets, or even time drainers like tv, hobbies, or community involvement. Sometimes you can feel where these things effect you before you can actually know what they are. They might even be good things that need to take a back seat to other areas where you need to build or heal. Remember that you have much more to offer when you are a whole, healthy person than when you are struggling or hurt.

Prayer: Pray that God would help you look in the tiny areas of your life and thank him that he cares even for things we consider trivial.

Safety - Day 3

Sometimes just categorizing issues can help us process them in a different way and let us see more clearly the effects they have on our lives since different issues require different amounts of energy and time. As you have thought about areas of change, separate them into one of the following three categories to help you organize and prioritize your efforts.

Very difficult – Issues that are very severe such as things induced by traumatic events like abuse, or death.

Difficult – Issues which create significant stress in your life. These could be relational issues, job or financial problems for example.

Minor – Issues that are problematic or annoying but not very serious. These could be bad habits or everyday common obstacles. Minor issues can be deceptive as we can often ignore them or play them off as not serious enough to address, but they can add up to larger issues or become inflated in their difficulty when we have to deal with something far greater.

Prayer: Pray that God helps you to clearly see the effects of your issues on your life.

Safety - Day 2

As you thought about areas where you may need change yesterday, you may have been either excited or intimidated by tackling these issues. Often when we think about our progress, we hold to expectations that are too high which can create trepidation in our start or frustration in our failures along the way.

We will try to look at very realistic and practical ways to deal with change, so don't be worried. As we look at change, be realistic with yourself about what you need and where you will be. The more difficult issues are, the more time they take to work through, but every day offers the reward of improvement.

Look back at the issues you thought about yesterday and think about the grace you need to give yourself for each one as you move forward.

Prayer: Offer these issues to God and pray for his grace on them.

Safety - Day 1

We have heard many times that we can't save the world, but it may be more accurate to say that we can't save anyone. We can offer help, but it is up to each person to own their issues as much as they are capable. Unless we take responsibility for our own issues we will never experience transformation. Sometimes we are faced with change that we must face or ignore, but other times we need to seek out areas where change needs to occur.

Think about areas where you know change is needed in your life and what that change might look like. Also, think about issues that you have let live in your life without taking time to process them deeply enough to find where they begin.

To deal with deep change we must be very honest with ourselves about what needs work so that we can plan properly.

Prayer: Pray that God will help you own your issues and give you the strength to confront them.

Foundations 12

Our beliefs are at the core of our person. Everything that we think about and act on is a result of what we believe. Our identity and passions all come from the importance we place on certain beliefs.

Today, think about everything you believe and offer it to God. Process these things and sort out why you believe the things you do and where you need to be stronger or more clarified.

Prayer: Pray that God would help you develop proper and realistic beliefs.

Foundations 11

Are there areas in your life you would like to explore but don't feel you have the ability? Sometimes we have strong feelings about things we feel need to be done, areas where we are especially called. We don't give ourselves permission to move to these places because we don't feel we are able. Maybe an education or lack of credentials make us feel discredited. Maybe, an endeavor seems like it would take way too much practice, or you feel that someone would look down on your failures as an amateur. Often, when we take a deep breath and start to pursue these things, we find that we are very rewarded even in the beginning stages of the process. Yes it might be difficult at times, but if we are truly called to these places we find that we have natural talents and our spirit is truly fulfilled in a new area as our identity is further defined.

Where in your life do you want to move forward but feel you just aren't able or qualified to? Be honest with yourself about how realistic it is. Get rid of all or nothing thinking about realize the value in the small steps.

Prayer: Pray that God would show you your true abilities and help you to develop them.

Foundations 10

Do you feel like you live life for yourself or other people? Are there things you feel you need to change about yourself before you can truly be who you are supposed to be? Are you easily influenced by people? Do you find that you are over sensitive to things that people say about you?

If you are an artists, do you feel that you have a clear direction for your art, or do you constantly explore the styles of others as you search for your own expression?

How comfortable do you feel when you are alone? Do you feel the constant need to fill in the space with sound or some sort of entertainment? Do you enjoy the time to think about things and refresh yourself with your thoughts?

Do you have hobbies, days off, time with close friends. Are those close friends people that you have chosen for yourself?

Having quiet time to ourselves, outings doing things we enjoy and journaling every day, are some things that help us get to know ourselves. How much we explore these times can quickly have a positive or negative effect on our identity.

Prayer: Ask God to create in you the person he has in mind for you to be.

Foundations 9

Our attitude is our view of the world and determines a lot about how we choose to interact with it. A bad attitude can effect our ability to interact with others, our permission to achieve, and our emotional dynamicism as well as many other important attributes of our lifes.

Relationships
How to you typically feel about other people? Are they approachable? Are they safe? Are you equal to them or do you see people as being on levels higher or lower than you? Are people full of interesting gifts and ideas to explore or are they challenging and obstructive? Do you tend to avoid strangers or embrace them?

Life
What do you think about life in general? Is life a place where you spend time treading water until you have vacations or weekends? Do you expect life to be easy but it keeps throwing hard things at you? Is life a place where you have to constantly guard yourself from problems and difficulties? Do you feel that you have freedom to be yourself and do things you really feel called to?

Self
How do you view yourself? Do you feel that you are a good person? Do you feel that people value you, your personality and your abilities? Are there things you feel you need to change before you can truly feel good about yourself?

As you think about these answers, think about how much sense they really make. Where did you get these ideas and are the "rules" actual rules, or just things you believe to be true for no apparent reason.

Now think about the attitude you want to have and re-write these rules and beliefs.

Prayer: Pray that God would show you his vision for your attitude.

Foundations 8

Once we decide that we want to change and turn the direction of our life, we need to adjust our focus. In the same way where we look when we walk determines the destination of our travel, where we look in our life determines the direction of our future.

In our quest to be better people, we often seek out our problems and try to change our behaviour by simply not doing the thing that we feel is wrong. We then feel frustrated and defeated when we find that we can't change the issues. There seems to be a constant force pushing our bad habits, feelings, or actions. This is because we are putting our focus on the problem or symptom. Instead we should follow the problems to their source and see where they originate; usually at a foundation. Moving our focus towards building that foundation takes the focus off the failure of trying to change behaviour that we are incapable of changing. As we become more healthy in our foundation, the symptoms then become unecessary in a natural and healthy way, creating a sense of strength and control in us rather than futility.

Today, think about your focus in life in regards to what we just discussed.

Prayer: Ask God to look with you into your life and continually help direct your focus where it should be.

Foundations 7

Before change can happen, we must realize that it needs to. Often we are very content with the situation we are living in without questioning how we got there or if it's how we want to live even though we may have learned bad behaviour through one of many avenues in the course of our lives.

Of course we shouldn't live in a constant state of discontent because of how our lives "should be", but we should always challenge ourselves and check our direction. Not taking control of our direction can result in being influenced by many factors which will effect our foundations, and there are infinite such factors. Commercials will tell us what we need in order to be happy, people will tell us who we are, or who we are supposed to be, traumatic situations will create fear within us, and authorities will create our rules and beliefs.

Many of these factors have already defined parts of our foundations. It's up to us to decide if we choose to live with them or take steps to define ourselves. This is what we mean when we talk about repentance: turning from our old lives and claiming victory and ownership over them on a path of growth. It's hard, it means change, it means facing difficult memories, it means not living comfortably.

Think about your view of life today. Are you too content? What is your tolerance for change before you want to escape back to the safety of your routine? Does this inhibit growth for you? How many difficult situations in relationships or your past do you just ignore because it's more comfortable that way?

Prayer: Pray that God would expose the true state of your heart when it comes to repentance.

Foundations 6

Yesterday we talked about how important relationships are as we deal with the difficulties in our lives. Before that we talked about how our guilt and shame effect our relationships with ourselves. So now is a good time to talk about how these things effect our relationships with others.

When we thought about how close and trusting our relationships are, did you question why there is distance between certain relationships you have compared to others? Think about that distance and see if any of that is attributed to guilt or shame. They may be hidden under words like "private" or "guarded" or "safe". Sometimes when people don't accept us we can feel a type of shame where we feel less valued, as if there is something wrong with us. Certainly we need to protect ourselves from people that are distructive to us, but there shouldn't be much keeping us from continually getting closer to good people.

Remember conviction and confession draw people closer, guilt and shame pull people farther apart.

Prayer: Pray that God would show you the true nature of your relationships, whether they're affirming healthy practices or illuminating the unhealthy.

Foundations 5

Once you know the areas where you need to work, it is hard or impossible to just think or act better. You need to replace those thoughts and actions with healthier thoughts and actions.

This is where community comes in. We need other positive and trustworthy people in our lives to affirm and relate to us. We are designed to need this. We need other voices that we can confess to, voices that can relate and help us work things out. We need voices more powerful than our inner voice so that we can deal with issues in a sober and realistic manner, rather than just our own one sided view points.

Think about your peers and community. Are there people that you trust and respect? Are there people that care about you and know you well? If not, why is this and what can you do to create these kinds of relationships? If there are these kinds of people in your life, are you talking to them about your issues and are they talking to you about theirs? If not why? This is an essential part of how God made us and is necessary for our individual and communal health.

Prayer: Pray that God would illuminate the reality of your relationships and challenge you to make them deeper.

Foundations 4

As we are focusing on guilt and shame versus confession and godly sorrow, think about things that have made you feel guilty or shameful. Have you broken a law or hurt someone else physically or emotionally? Has something happened to you that creates shame or guilt, whether it was within your control or not? Was there ever something you should have done where you stood bye without action creating consequence? Are you not living up to an ideal that you expect for yourself? Are there things you constantly do that you know are wrong?

We must identify these things so that we can confront and work them out. If we don't, they stay in us and create disorder and conflict. If we let these things stay too long then we create unhealthy habits to deal with, or hide from the issues. Once we have these habits for too long they start to effect our foundations, they might hinder our abilities or create a sour attitude, our beliefs can suffer and turn negative and our identify can become confused.

Identify these things so that you can address them.

Foundations 3

Looking back on yesterday, did you notice that your inner voice seemed to be more critical of certain areas in your life, or favoring others? When we are weak in certain foundations, this will effect other foundations as well, creating an imbalance in our lives.

It is good to make a habit of checking the tone that you have with yourself in reference to the different foundations in your life as this can help indicate source problems or strengths.

Prayer: Pray that God would help illuminate imbalance in your life.

Foundations 2

Yesterday we spent time trying to identify our inner voice. Today, now that we are listening, we want to focus on its messages.

Listen to your inner voice throughout the day and see if you can get some insight as to what it says about your identity, attitude, abilities and beliefs. Is it glowingly encouraging? Generally constructive? Discouraging? Abusive? If it was a friend would it be a good friend? How does it speak to you through difficult issues?

Prayer: Pray that God would make you more aware of your relationship with yourself.

Foundations 1

We often hear about our inner critic when we talk about negative things we believe and feel about ourselves. There are many ways to deal with the inner critic such as: learning positive tools to combat the inner critic, or journaling to realize and process subconscious ideas consciously.

Today we want to look broader than just the inner critic. Think about your inner voice as a whole, not just the negative thoughts but all of the thoughts. What is that voice? Does is have a specific sound? Is it a person in your life? What kind of language does it use? What kind of tone does it use with you? What is it's personality?

You should get to know the inner voice well, as it speaks from the source of your identity and beliefs. How it speaks to you effects your attitude and abilities. Many people are afraid of their inner voice and keep life busy and noisy so they don't have to hear it. Others cherish the time they have alone with themselves to remember who they are and enjoy their own self.

Prayer: Pray that God helps you to know yourself intimately.