21 Ways to Finding Peace and Happiness (26 page)

Satan is a liar, and if we believe his lies, he has successfully deceived us in one or more areas. For example, Satan told me for years that I would never have a good life because I had been abused in my childhood. I did not know any different, so I believed what I thought. As I became a student of God’s Word, I learned that even though my past had been unpleasant, God had a great future planned for me. I learned it was not too late for me, as Satan had been telling me for years.

God’s Word renews our minds; it teaches us a new way of thinking. We can begin to think the way God thinks instead of the way the devil would like us to think. Instead of looking at a nice home and thinking,
I could never own a home like that,
we can think (and say),
God will bless me with a lovely home. He meets all my needs.

Instead of thinking we will get cancer because three relatives in our family died of it, we can think,
The blood of Jesus protects me, His name is a hiding place for me, God’s healing power is working in my body right now, making right anything that is wrong.

Instead of thinking we absolutely cannot forgive someone who has hurt us, we can think like this:
I am hurting, and what has been done to me is wrong, but I trust God to vindicate me. I can forgive through the power of the Holy Spirit. I will pray for the one who hurt me, I will bless him, and God will give me double blessings for my former trouble
.

Think about what you think about. If you start to feel depressed, discouraged, or angry, stop and examine your thoughts. You will find that you have been thinking thoughts that are producing the negative emotions you are experiencing. We can make ourselves miserable or happy by what we choose to think about.

When writing about the effect stress has on our health, Dr. Colbert included the following review on the importance of keeping our thoughts in line with God’s Word:

Perhaps the greatest stresses that one encounters are the [unexpected] storms of life. It may be a personal injury or illness of a family member, friend, or oneself, a marital separation or divorce, the death of a relative or close friend, being fired at work, a lawsuit, finding out your daughter is pregnant out of wedlock or has had an abortion, or that your child is on drugs. These are the storms of life that seem to occur at the most inopportune times. Most of us want these problems to go away, and when they don’t, they leave us even more frustrated and stressed than before, and our minds constantly seem to dwell on the problem, with no answer in sight.

When confronted with a problem like this, the first thing we need to do is realize that in this world we will have tribulation—we have been promised that. Jesus said, “I have overcome the world” (John 16:33). And “many are the afflictions of the righteous, but the LORD delivereth him out of them all” (Psalm 34:19 KJV).

So, in other words, we should be able to accept problems as an inevitable part of our lives and see them as potential teachers rather than analyzing, meditating on, and struggling over them.

I once heard a preacher use the term “renting too much space in our minds out to problems.” The preacher talked about a man who had bought an apartment complex and rented out 90 percent of the apartments to drug addicts, prostitutes, and gang members, and 10 percent of the complex to law-abiding citizens who actually paid their rent. Well, after a few months, the 90 percent had run off the other 10 percent. Then the drug addicts, prostitutes, and gang members took up the whole complex, and no one was paying rent.

A similar thing happens in our minds when we start pondering, mulling over, and worrying about problems over which we have no control. We end up renting too much space in our minds to these problems, and they eventually take over most of our thoughts. In other words, we dwell on the problem, not the answer. We forget the second part of the Scripture in Psalm 34:19: “Many are the afflictions of the righteous:
but the LORD delivereth him out of them all
” (KJV, italics mine).

Instead of renting so much space to our problems, we have got to learn how to turn the channel of our minds from the worry channel to the praise-and-worship channel, the joy channel, the appreciation channel, the love channel, or the laughter channel, and start focusing on the things that are good in our lives. When we focus too much on a problem, it only makes the problem stronger. Then fretting actually becomes a habit, and the habit becomes very difficult to break.

The average person has about fifty thousand thoughts a day, and for many, these thoughts are mainly pessimistic and negative. When you are confronted with a negative thought, you have the option of either ignoring it or inviting it in and analyzing it, meditating on it, and allowing it to rent more space in your mind.

When you do the latter, you begin to speak out the problem with your mouth, and it becomes a word. You ponder it more, and it becomes an action. You then analyze and meditate on it more, and it becomes a habit, and unfortunately for the majority of Christians, most of their problems are simply negative thoughts that have become habits.

When confronted with a problem that you have no control over, ask God what He wants you to learn from it. Try to find out what He is trying to teach you by permitting the situation to remain longer than you would like.

Do you need to be more patient, more forgiving, more loving? When you allow your problems to be your teacher rather than your punishment, you will begin to learn from them and develop godly character.

Therefore, when one of the storms of life comes on you, how will you react? Will you learn to ignore little, insignificant problems and not rent space in your mind to them? Will you instead change to the appreciation, joy, love, peace, and praise-and-worship channels? When a massive storm, like a hurricane, enters your life, will you allow your thoughts to actually bring you closer to the Lord? Can you practice love, forgiveness, patience, and all the fruits of the Spirit?

Many times, the storms of life actually show us what is really inside our hearts, and unfortunately most Christians fail the test; they react in the flesh, with anger, self-pity, hostility, unforgiveness, fear, or bitterness. I tell patients to practice the love walk during the little trials of life: Practice patience and kindness, instead of being envious or rude. Through intense practice we will be ready for the storms of life; and when they do hit, we will be able to turn the channel in our minds to the love, peace, joy, forgiveness—to all the fruits of the Spirit channel. And thus, we will weather the storm of life and see the storm as a teacher that makes us even wiser.
*

We know the fruit of the Spirit dwells in us, but as Dr. Colbert’s article illustrates, we never really know how developed it is until it is squeezed. Trials squeeze our fruit and reveal our level of spiritual maturity. We learn more about ourselves during trials than at any other time in life.

We must remember that God is not the author of our problems, but He will use them to help us once we have them. God is good, and He gets good out of everything if we trust Him to do so. Romans 8:28 teaches us that all things work together for good to those who love God and are called according to His purpose. All things may not
feel
good, seem good, or even be good, but God can cause them to work out for good! What the enemy intends for our harm, God means for good (see Genesis 50:20).

F
IGHT THE
G
OOD
F
IGHT OF
F
AITH

Keeping our thoughts pure and in the will of God will be a lifetime battle. We must “fight the good fight of the faith,” according to First Timothy 6:12. The mind is the battlefield on which we fight. Satan wages war in the realm of our thoughts because he knows that if he can control our thoughts, he can control us and our destinies.

Study again the following verses in the
Amplified Bible
, and ask God to help you really understand the depth of their meaning: “For the weapons of our warfare are not physical [weapons of flesh and blood], but they are mighty before God for the overthrow and destruction of strongholds, [inasmuch as we] refute arguments
and
theories
and
reasonings and every proud and lofty thing that sets itself up against the [true] knowledge of God; and we lead every thought and purpose away captive into the obedience of Christ (the Messiah, the Anointed One)” (2 Corinthians 10:4–5).

Paul said we are to lead every thought captive unto the obedience of Jesus Christ. That means we take authority over wrong thoughts and bring them in subjection to God’s will. His will is His Word, so we must think according to His Word to be in obedience to Him. The devil likes to argue with us, tempt us to live in the mental realm of what reasoning dictates to us. He injects proud and lofty thoughts in our minds. He suggests that we are better than other people, saying they are wrong and we are right. He puts judgmental thoughts in our minds. We must cast down these demonically induced thoughts and replace them with humble thoughts of love and concern for others.

Since we are thinking most of the time, we will find the renewing of the mind quite a battle, especially in the beginning of our journey with God. When I initially started learning these principles, I felt all I did all day was cast down thoughts and watch them come right back.

I finally cried out to God, telling Him that I didn’t know how to just
not think
about something. He replied that the answer was very simple; I was to form the habit of filling my mind with good things so bad things could find no room.

I was once an extremely negative person, but God has taught me and brought me about-face so that now I am very positive and really have an aversion to being around negative people. Negative thinkers are not the type of people with whom I want to work or fellowship. Romans 12:21 shares one of the most powerful principles in God’s Word; it says that we overcome evil with good! It works in every situation.

Being good to people who have treated you badly is the way to win them and break the power of Satan. It is the open door to the radical blessings of God in our lives. Thinking good thoughts is the way to overcome the habit of thinking bad ones. Yes, good always overcomes evil.

God is stronger than the enemy: “You, dear children, are from God and have overcome them, because the one who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world” (1 John 4:4 NIV). This makes reference to the fact that God and everything He represents is greater than the devil and anything he represents. God is good, the devil is evil; therefore, good always overcomes evil.

If we walk in the Spirit, we will not fulfill the lusts of the flesh (see Galatians 5:16). We don’t have to spend our lives fighting with sin, temptation, wrong thoughts, lusts of the flesh. We can choose the right thing, and the wrong thing will find no place to exist in us.

There will be times of fighting the good fight of faith, but as in any other war, if we win enough battles, we will eventually win the entire war.

L
ITTLE BY
L
ITTLE

We overcome the devastations of our past ways of life little by little. We make a big mistake if we look at everything that is wrong in our lives due to many years of bad choices and expect to eradicate the results overnight.

God delivers us from our enemies little by little (see Deuteronomy 7:22). Expecting anything else only sets us up for discouragement. If you discover, as a result of reading this book, that you really have some problems with your thinking processes and need some big changes in your life, don’t even think it will all happen overnight or even quickly.

Having your mind totally renewed is a process that can take years. Be thrilled about your progress, and don’t be discouraged about what still needs to be done. Be excited about how far you have come, not depressed about how far you still have to go. Even realizing you have a problem is progress.

We have thoughts in literally thousands of different areas, and God deals with them one at a time. The Holy Spirit worked with me for a long time, helping me learn to think better thoughts about myself. Then we worked together on how I viewed other people, my past, my future, the world, my work, and so on. In the beginning of my journey with God, I felt defeated most of the time because I kept thinking about how far I had to go. No matter how much progress I made, I was overwhelmed by what still needed to be done.

Satan wanted to make sure I did not feel at all victorious, but eventually I realized I needed to be careful how I thought about my thoughts. I could think,
I will never change. I’ll never be positive enough to overcome all the junk in my mind.
Or I could think,
I may still have problems in many areas of my thinking, but I have made progress, and I will continue making progress. Even if it takes the rest of my life, I will keep pressing forward and will enjoy new victories daily.

At first, thinking in this new way was awkward, it was work, it required effort. Eventually, being positive was natural, and being negative felt all wrong. Thinking wrong thoughts actually makes me uncomfortable now; I feel a burden on my spirit when I do. Just think how someone would feel who was perhaps twenty-five years old and had never worn shoes in her entire life—when suddenly someone put shoes on her. She would definitely be uncomfortable. When God places this halter on our minds, it is uncomfortable at first; but it is the discipline that leads us into the good plan He has for us. He wants to transform our thinking, as this verse shows:

Do not be conformed to this world (this age), [fashioned after and adapted to its external, superficial customs], but be transformed (changed) by the [entire] renewal of your mind [by its new ideals and its new attitude], so that you may prove [for yourselves] what is the good and acceptable and perfect will of God, even the thing which is good and acceptable and perfect [in His sight for you]. (Romans 12:2)