Power Thoughts: 12 Strategies to Win the Battle of the Mind (15 page)

Suppose a man desperately wants to make a career change because he hates his job and is totally unfulfilled and miserable in it. Let’s say he is in the accounting department at a large manufacturing firm, but the desire of his heart has always been to work in sales. He believes he is gifted in being able to sell things he really believes in, so why doesn’t he just change jobs? He starts to, but then he stops and thinks about the fact that in the accounting department, he always gets his paycheck every two weeks and it is always for the same amount. He can depend on it and plan around it. In the sales area, he would work on commission and his income would depend on how much he sold. It might fluctuate, which would necessitate better financial planning or a stricter budget.

Then, more thoughts come to him:
You would have to build a reputation in sales and develop a customer base, and that will take time. Your income may be lower than it is now for a while. You will have to do without some things. Your family will have to sacrifice for a while. And what if it takes much longer than you think it will?

Suddenly the man is afraid to make the change he desperately wants to make and he continues day after day going to a job he hates, being unfulfilled and miserable. Only the man can change his situation. He must take a step of faith, drive fear backward, and be unwilling to be trapped in a job he despises.

God is standing by to help him, but that can only happen if the man puts his faith in God. God cannot give us anything we are not willing to step out and take. The Bible says repeatedly that we are to “Fear not” because God is with us. We have two choices: Believe this truth and make decisions based on it, or live narrow, often miserable lives because we are afraid of change, risk, or new situations.

Although I did not appear to others to be a fearful person, I actually spent many years bowing down to internal feelings of fear. Then I finally learned to “do it afraid.” What I mean by this is that I learned to follow my heart as long as it agreed with God’s Word and keep going forward even when fear was making me shake and telling me I was going to fail. Since the devil is a liar, we can be fairly sure that when he tells us something isn’t going to work, it will. When God is trying to show us to back away from something, He does so by withdrawing our peace, not by trying to frighten us. I often back away from something because I lose my peace. We are to follow peace and let it be the umpire in our life, but we must not follow fear.

I started overcoming fear by praying and by thinking and saying, “I will not live in fear.” I even learned to say, “Fear will always present itself to me, but I will ignore it and keep going forward.” Remember,
fear
means “to take flight or run away from something.” I learned that I had to stop running and stand still long enough to see what God would do for me if I let my faith in Him be larger than my fears. I finally realized that each time God was leading me into a new area that would eventually be better for me, the devil launched an attack of fear against me. Fear is the devil’s favorite weapon and he uses it masterfully against people until they realize that through God they have the power to move beyond fear and keep making progress.

Think about It

Are you running from anything in your life? If so, will you keep moving forward—and see what God will do for you?

Be Filled with Faith

Fear is the opposite of faith. We receive from the enemy through fear, and we receive from God through faith. Fear is the enemy’s brand of faith, his counterfeit of it. In other words, we can know and do God’s will through placing our faith in Him, but we can cooperate with the devil’s plan through fear. When we are afraid, we may fail to do what God wants us to do and, instead, end up doing what the devil wants us to do. The Old Testament man Job said that what he feared came upon him (see Job 3:25), which is exactly what the enemy wanted for him and what he wants for us. The enemy is the author of fear, not God. In fact, 2 Timothy 1:7 says God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power, and we need to apply this truth to our lives and refuse to live any way other than powerfully.

I want to share something I have been practicing aggressively lately. I have found it very helpful, and I believe you will too. When fear knocks on the door of our lives, if it finds us full of faith, it cannot enter in. I strongly urge you to meditate on and confess that you are filled with faith. I say it like this, “I am a woman of faith. I think faith, talk faith, and walk in faith.” I also choose portions of Scripture about faith and meditate on them. Hebrews 11:6 is a good example: “Without faith it is impossible to please and be satisfactory to Him. For whoever would come near to God must [necessarily] believe that God exists and that He is the rewarder of those who earnestly and diligently seek Him [out].” The more I meditate on faith and believe I am a woman filled with it, the stronger and more energetic I feel. Fear weakens us in every way, but faith adds courage, boldness, confidence, and actual energy to our lives.

In 1 Timothy 6:12, Paul encouraged Timothy to “fight the good fight of faith” (
NKJV
). We all need to fight this good fight and I believe meditating on and confessing God’s Word is the way to do it. Remember, we are in a war and the battlefield is the mind.

If you are accustomed to allowing your mind to go wherever it pleases, meditating on the Word of God will require forming a new habit. Don’t become discouraged if you find that you have good intentions but fail many times. I can assure you that everyone has the same experience in the beginning of this journey. Pray for God’s grace to enable you and don’t merely “try” to do it. Quite often, we try very hard without asking for God’s assistance, but He always wants to help us obey Him, so all you have to do is ask. Ask Him to help you develop an ability to concentrate and focus on power thoughts that will enable you, rather than entertaining “Uninvited Guests” (thoughts) that will disable you.

When Satan comes to attack you with fear, make sure you are filled with faith so there will be no place of entrance for him. Fear and faith cannot coexist; where you have one, you will not have the other. God’s Word builds faith in your heart, so use it—and you’ll keep fear out of your life.

Think about It

How can you demonstrate faith instead of fear?

Freedom from a Great Fear

I actually believe it is possible to be so afraid people will disapprove of us—what we say, what we do, what we think, how we look, what we value, or the choices we make—that we become addicted to approval. “Approval addiction” happens when people need the approval of others so much that they are miserable anytime they feel they don’t have it. They even make certain decisions to gain approval rather than to follow their hearts or to obey what they believe to be God’s will for their lives. I am keeping this section rather brief, but because it is a huge problem, I have an entire book on the subject titled
Approval Addiction.
I highly recommend it if you feel you need help in this area.

I developed an out-of-balance need for approval because I did not have a healthy relationship with my father. I was not addicted to the approval of everyone around me, and in some cases I did not care what people thought at all. But when it came to authority figures in my life, especially male authority figures, I desperately craved approval. I know now that I was trying to get from men in positions of authority what I should have had from my father but never received.

Are you afraid of anyone in particular? Are you afraid of certain personality types? Locating a problem is the first step to defeating it so I strongly encourage you to isolate repetitive fears and make a decision to overcome them. Many people confess that they fear authority figures in their life and that is unfortunate because we all have to deal with others who have authority over us.

I once had an employee who was terribly afraid of me because of some unresolved issues from her childhood. Her fear not only made her miserable, but it made me very uncomfortable too. She was so fearful of not pleasing me that she often made mistakes that she would not have made had she been more confident. She could not relax and I felt that I had to be extremely careful about everything I said and did so she could hopefully remain confident, but it seemed that nothing worked for very long. It was difficult to tell her that she did anything wrong and needed to correct it. It was difficult to be direct and straightforward in communication, and I found myself trying so hard to keep her confident that it became an unbearable burden for me. Her fear was actually stealing my ability to be myself and eventually our working relationship just did not work and she had to move on to something else.

The sad thing is that she was a beautiful, kind, and caring individual who wanted to do her best and craved acceptance, but her fears continually stole the very thing that she desired.

It makes me sad when people are afraid of those who have authority over them, but unfortunately this is quite often the case. A great many people have been mistreated by an authority figure while growing up and they tend to transfer their fears onto other people who had absolutely nothing to do with their initial problem. I can always discern when someone is comfortable with me or uncomfortable and nervous. I lean toward those who are confident because I know they will not only be able to do the job, but I will also be able to enjoy my relationship with them.

It is important to realize that our fears not only affect us, but they can also affect the people around us. Nothing is more uncomfortable to me than having to tiptoe around a person because they have fears that make them touchy, fearful, and uptight. I feel sorry for them and I pray for them but, ultimately, fear cannot be conquered unless we recognize it and confront it by not letting it control us.

You may be like I was—afraid other people will not approve of you or afraid of an authority figure in your life. Whether you struggle with this fear or other fears, the path to freedom is the same: study God’s Word and apply it to your life; pray; and renew your mind.

Think about It

Do you have an out-of-balance need for approval? Is there anyone you are allowing to control you due to fear?

God Is with You

The truth we must believe to overcome fear is that God is with us. This makes all the difference in life and it is the key to being able to obey what God tells us to do so many times throughout the Bible, which is “Do not fear.” If we are not confident that He is with us, we will fear. David was only able to face Goliath because he knew that God was with Him. He did not rely on his own ability, but he trusted God. We may not always know exactly what God is going to do, but we can relax by knowing that He will do what needs to be done at the right time. We can easily feel afraid if we think about the future and all the things that are unknown to us. We can look at it two ways. We can either be negative and fearful, or we can be excited about being part of God’s mystery, knowing He knows exactly what’s going to happen and is right there with us, helping us and directing us.

We may not know what to do in a tense situation, but God does. He is never surprised by anything. He knows everything before it happens and He has already planned our deliverance, so all we need to do is keep going forward. We simply need to take one step at a time and not worry about the next one because God will be there to guide us in the next step when the time comes.

God has said that He is with us at all times. This is a powerful truth that can absolutely demolish fear in our lives. We don’t have to see or feel Him in order to believe that. Faith is a matter of the heart, not the natural senses. God is with you! Believe it and begin living courageously. Renew your mind to the truth that God is always with you by thinking about it and confessing it. The more aware you are of His Presence the more confident you will be.

Say “I will not fear. I will not be afraid of men because God is with me.” As you take the next week and meditate on this power thought, I believe you will begin to feel more confident than ever before. You only have one life to live, so live it boldly and never let fear steal God’s best for you!

Power Pack

“For [the Spirit which] you have now received [is] not a spirit of slavery to put you once more in bondage to fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption [the Spirit producing sonship] in [the bliss of] which we cry, Abba (Father)! Father!”

Romans 8:15

“What then shall we say to [all] this? If God is for us, who [can be] against us? [Who can be our foe, if God is on our side?]”

Romans 8:31

“The Lord is on my side; I will not fear. What can man do to me?”

Psalm 118:6

“For God did not give us a spirit of timidity (of cowardice, of craven and cringing and fawning fear), but [He has given us a spirit] of power and of love and of calm and well-balanced mind and discipline and self-control.”

2 Timothy 1:7

POWER THOUGHT

4

I am difficult to offend.

“Great peace have they who love Your law; nothing shall offend them or make them stumble.”

Psalm 119:165

P
eople who want to live powerful lives must become experts at forgiving those who offend and hurt them. When someone hurts my feelings or is rude and insensitive to me, I find it helpful to quickly say, “I will not be offended.” I have to say those words quietly in my heart if the person is still in my presence, but later when the memory of what he or she did returns to haunt me, I repeat them aloud. When I say, “I will not be offended,” I always pray for God to help me, realizing that I can do nothing without Him. So once again, “I pray and I say!”