Transforming Thoughts

It has been a while since my last post.  We've enjoyed the wedding of our oldest son, Valentines Day has come and gone, and now we are in that lull until Spring Break. Sometimes when there is a lull we get caught in that chasm of nothingness that often exists between life events. 
 Transforming your thoughts is such a powerful title for today's word for the day.  As an athlete I have heard so many times, "If you think you can't, your right".  I've also heard it said, " you can do anything you put your mind to".  And then there's the song She's a Wild One, with the lyrics, "when she was three years old on her daddy's knee, he said you can be anything you wanna be".  
At some time in our lives we've all heard that motivational speech, or been encouraged by a parent or a coach.  And each time we heard those inspirational words, we've been charged to move on toward a goal.  But then, time passes, we reach a plateau or come to a set back where something stops us in our tracks and then... we may quit or give up. 
As those days happen we have choices to make.  We can nurse a thought, either negative or positive. Regardless of the direction the thought takes, the more we dwell on it the more it becomes our reality.  
As you read Pastor Joyce's word for the day, I encourage you to transform your thoughts.  Think

Transforming Thoughts February 16

By Joyce Wyrostek

Proverbs 23:7 says, “For as a man thinks in his heart so is he.” The problem with most of us is we don’t think.  We fail to engage our brain before we speak, or act; we go through days, weeks, months and sometimes years unconscious.  If we fail to program the unconscious mind and it leads our conscious actions we will fail to make right choices. By programming the unconscious mind I mean feeding it words and truths related to the Word of God that bring about conscious acts habitually.

Once I was working as a company manager and was directed to go on a thirty day fast.  The Holy Spirit defined the fast this way.   Do not allow a negative thought to remain in your brain for more than 8 seconds, within that time change it to a positive.  The Bible says in Romans 12:2 “Don’t be conformed to this world but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.” I was about to get some on the job training. The fast was a real challenge because 70,000 thoughts pass through the human brain in a day and are generated from both inside and outside stimuli. 

I struggled a while trying to think of positive input because I worked with a lot of negative people.  So I put them on notice that I was on a fast and said if they had something negative to say to me they had only 4 seconds to get it said so I could have 4 seconds to turn it around.   Here’s an example;   a secretary said, “I feel so tired”. When the thought entered my mind because of her words the only thing I could come up with was, “I’d rather live by faith than try to make it on feelings…the just shall live by faith.” We both laughed.

I had a great time working through the thirty days and sometimes it was exhausting. But in the end I learned that I could control how I thought and my thoughts controlled my actions.  If we don’t discipline our subconscious we can easily fall into negative thinking and become reactive to life. When pushed around by what we see and hear in the natural we will be angry, bitter, blame people for jerking us around and making us feel inferior on the inside.  If we feel inferior on the inside we have no power on the outside.