Remember when you were a child and your parents and teachers taught you how to STOP, LOOK AND LISTEN when crossing busy streets, and walking about in large crowds? There was a technique to be learned about STAYING SAFE, avoiding accidents and dangers of all kinds.
It's easier to STOP when going slow. It takes a long time for debilitating thoughts to slow down, especially in REAL CIRCUMSTANCES.
Ask yourself what types of thoughts you should be LOOKING for. This is called 'scanning' and we need to be LOOKING or SCANNING whenever there are REAL CIRCUMSTANCES that can also become potential dangers.
To LISTEN is to identify debilitating thoughts and where they come from.
Ask yourself what you need to THINK about once you have stopped, looked, and listened. Focus on the safest way to 'cross' to the truth of God's Word, his thoughts towards you, awareness of your circumstances, and the time you need to do this.
As children, we learned to trust our parents and teachers to keep us safe. Now as adult followers of Jesus Christ, we can trust our savior by reminding ourselves to stay on the path that he called us to, and not to veer to the left or right. Not to give in to the resolve that this life is too hard, it's over, and that the enemy has won. Of course, these thoughts may enter our minds temporarily. But we can, and MUST, take authority over them before they have a chance to take root.
Our Lord is innately focused on keeping us safe no matter what comes our way. Yes, we will suffer pain, sickness, rejection, hardship, and even death, for this life is prone to these things, sometimes due to sin, sometimes because we just live in a fallen world.
"That ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven; for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust." Matthew 5:45
When you get swept away and begin to TRUST in the reality of YOUR OWN CIRCUMSTANCES AND DEBILITATING THOUGHTS FROM THE ENEMY, because you will, remember............you can TRUST in the constantness of God, HIS CREATION, and HIS SOVEREIGNTY. Now, look around you! See His creation? The sky, the trees, the animals, the streams, the lakes, the sun, moon, and stars. What about the air you breathe each day, the earth how it continues to spin, the rain He sends when your gardens need nourishment. THESE ARE CONSTANT!
"Though the mountains be shaken and the hills be removed, yet my unfailing love for you will not be shaken nor my covenant of peace be removed, says the LORD, who has compassion on you." Isaiah 54:10
"They will neither hunger nor thirst, nor will the desert heat or the sun beat down on them. He who has compassion on them will guide them and lead them beside springs of water."
Isaiah 49:10
"Yet the LORD longs to be gracious to you; therefore he will rise up to show you compassion. For the LORD is a God of justice. Blessed are all who wait for him!"
Isaiah 30:18
On a journey of Healing and Hope with you,
Terri Lynne
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