I can’t!
How many times have I chosen to
decide “I can’t” accomplish the God given desires of my heart? I discovered one of those unexamined “I
can’t” decisions this morning during my meditation time.
I spend this meditation time
dedicated to one purpose. I am working diligently to cleanse my mobile temple.
I am referring to the quality of my thought life.
Biblically, we are exhorted to take
all thoughts captive unto Christ. This idea on the surface sounds like the
ideal way to get a ticket to heaven. If we take all thoughts captive, we can
become Christ like in both our thoughts and our actions. However, there is a
major hurdle to jump in accomplishing such a lofty goal. That hurdle is “I
can’t”
The large majority of my attempts to
take my thoughts captive lasted less than a few days. Before I knew it, I was
back to square 1 and allowing whatever garbage the impulse of the moment
produced to capture the attention of my thoughts, most often to my detriment.
I found myself in the most desperate
circumstance of my life three years ago.
I was accused of misconduct by my granddaughter in an event that
transpired six years earlier. That misconduct produced a criminal charge, and
led to the severing of all of my cherished family relationships. I literally
became an outcast.
For the entirety of these three years
I have worked in earnest to overcome the damage done to my family and all of
those relationships. The most earnest of
these efforts has been to develop the discipline necessary to carefully and
methodically change my thought life. The
simple truth is I am responsible for every thought I allow to present itself
into the focus of my conscious thoughts.
There are vast numbers of thoughts
entering my conscious mind daily, and each one is evaluated and associated to a
similar thought in my unconscious. I have a choice with each of these separate
thoughts. I can carefully consider the value of the thought, and choose to
accept the conclusion of my unconscious about its true association to reality,
or I can take a split second and accept whatever association my unconscious
assigns it.
My perceptions of reality depend upon
those choices. If I allow those conclusions to go unexamined, they will have a heavy
emotional bias connected to them. I can guarantee that result in my personal
life, as I am the product of a great deal of negative drama in my past. That
“drama “ unrealistically taints a clear perception about the
intentions of others in relationship with me.
So how do I now go about cleaning up
the temple of my thought life and make those thoughts and resulting acts pleasing
to God? I follow a simple plan established by neuroscientist Dr. Caroline Leaf.
It is called “Switch on your brain” thought detox plan.
The thought I am working on at the
moment is my inability to sustain an intimacy with Father God. I have had 3
brief experiences of deep intimacy with Him in major healing moments of my
life, but I was not able to duplicate the awe or the transforming power of
those moments in my daily walk.
Today in my “time” with Him, I began
working on the revelation of my conscience mind that I had concluded those
moments were the “exceptional rescue moments” of my life. They were an
aberration to my norm. Therefore, they
were impossible for me to duplicate under normal everyday life. The sudden discovery of this false conclusion
left me in tears. Those tears were tears
of Godly sorrow, not shame blame or condemnation. I knew I had the choice to
examine that conclusion and replace the faulty reality with divine truth.
The truth is, Papa God desires the
deepest intimacy with me that I am able to give Him. I chose not to take the
time and the effort to build the quality of my thought life to the point where
true honest communion with Him was possible.
Sadly it started with “I can’t”
So what do I do differently now? The
solution is so very simple. I accept the truth that His grace is sufficient for
me, and that His mercies are new each day.
My simple goal is to live totally in
the present moment. In the moment I can choose to maintain a continuing
dialogue with Papa about everything that floats across my conscious thought
stream. I can have the Holy Spirit turn up the power of both my conscience and
my intuition. I can choose to pay attention to these valuable thought process
elements to guide me in every choice I make, every conclusion I come to, and
every action I decide to take.
The end result of my disciplined determination to change my thoughts is the proper cleansing of my temple, a temple worthy of housing my King, a temple ready to worship my Papa, my best friend forever. In every one of those blissful moments the truth will be born out....
