How To Fight – some thoughts from “Get Out of Your Head” by Jennie Allen.
**
Give
everyone a paper…
Please
write down what’s on your mind…
Was it
something you are grateful for or something you are worried about?
Anyone want to share?
Now hold that thought….
**
Aaronic
Blessing:
6:22- “This is the way you shall
bless the children of Yisrael, saying to them, YHUH bless you and keep.
You: YHUH make His face shine upon you,
and be gracious to you: YHUH lift up His countenance upon you, and give you
shalom. And they shall put My Name upon the children of Yisra’el and I will
bless them.”
Chapter 7
= 3,6,9 repeating pattern – 369, 417, 528, 639, 741, 852… every 8
verses.
Remember these chapters were meant to be sung!
369 = Ut – grief and
joy
417 = Re – unload
situations and facilitating change
528 = Mi – DNA
repair/ “the miracle frequency”
639 = Fa –
reconnecting and balancing relationships
741 = Sol – solving
problems, expressing solutions
852 = La – creates an inner balance, harmony, self-awareness
**~~
Let’s go
back to thought you were thinking when I asked you to write it down…
Was it
positive, or negative?
Learning
how to capture our thoughts matters a whole lot.
Because
our thoughts shape our lives.
75 to 98 percent of mental, physical, and behavioral illness comes from one’s thought life.
The
average person has more than 30,000 thoughts per day.
Of those, so many are negative that “according to researchers, the vast majority of the illnesses that plague us today are a direct result of a toxic thought life.” (Dr. Caroline Leaf)
Our brain is always changing…. Scientists call it plasticity… because it can be “reshaped” so to speak.
Emotions
(the byproduct of the way we think) lead us into thoughts.
Thoughts
dictate our decisions.
Decisions
determine behaviors.
Behaviors
shape our relationships with consequences.
-All of
which takes us back to healthy or unhealthy thinking.
Many
times, we get on a downward spiral or way of thinking…
And that
is where we stay…
UNLESS WE
INTERRUPT THIS!
The Word
says we can take every thought captive!
2
Corinthians 10:3-5 p 870
Allen says
“What we
believe and what we think about matters, and the enemy knows it. And he is determined to get in your head to
distract you from doing good and to sink you so deep that you feel helpless,
overwhelmed, shutdown, and incapable of rising to make a difference for the
Kingdom of God.”
We have
talked many times about lies we believe.
Lies we tell ourselves.
These lies
tend to revolve around: “I’m not
enough”
“I’m helpless”
“I’m worthless”
“I’m unlovable.”
“These
lies – shape our thinking, our emotions, and the way we respond to the world
around us.
They trap
us in their cycle of distraction and distortion and pain, preventing us from
recognizing the truth we should believe.
Most detrimentally, they change how we view (YAH) God. Every lie we buy into about ourselves is rooted in what we believe about (YAH) God.”
Our very
first step in this fight is to pay attention to our thinking.
Hence the
reason I asked you what was on your mind.
If we can
think about our thoughts, we can reset and redirect them.
What if we
think about YHUH and the things HE says to think about so much that HE is what
takes up the space in our thinking?
And when
this happens, fear cannot stay.
They will
shrink in comparison.
“I’m not
enough” cannot stay.
This is
what I want – to be so focused on the things of Yah that there is literally no
room for the enemy in my thinking.
But please
hear what Allen says…
“The enemy of our souls has no intention of releasing his grip on our minds without a fight. And let me tell you, he doesn’t play fair.”
Allen
relates an experience she had at a church she was speaking at.
She said, “During my first talk I swung for the fences with the women seated before me. I was bold and clear in my presentation of the gospel message… There’s a real enemy with demons at his beck and call. He wants to take you out. He’s determined to steal your faith…”
During a break – “when suddenly that kind-looking woman was in my face. Her expression darkened, her warm smile disappeared, and her eyes narrowed as she focused intently on me. – ‘We are coming for you,’ she said in an urgent whisper. ‘You need to quit talking about us. We are coming for you.”
At first,
she didn’t know what the lady was talking about.
She even
asked her – and the lady just told her ‘You know exactly what I am talking
about.”
And she
still didn’t get it –
“Until (she) did.”
She went back to the stage to do her second presentation … Started speaking, and then heard shrieking in the hallway.
I love
this story she shared… because it makes a point –
This is
WAR.
We have to
recognize it for what it is!
We have to start being on the offense instead of the defense!
Back to
Allen –
She
then explains that she fell into 18 months of a spiral of hopelessness.
The attack was real.
They came
for her, just like their messenger had said.
Allen said
she was in a pit.
Then she
quoted Beth Moore – who is a self-described “former pit-dweller”.
“There are three kinds of pits:
the kind we jump into,
the kind
we slip into,
and the
kind we’re thrown into.”
“This
attack was the latter” she said.
“I had been thrown in.
The
question that haunted me during those sleepless nights was how on earth to get
out?”
“I’m helpless. I’m worthless. I’m unlovable.”
Allen
wrote -
“The danger of toxic thinking is it produces an alternate reality, one in which distorted reasoning actually seems to make sense.”
Let me
read that again…
“The danger of toxic thinking is it produces an alternate reality, one in which distorted reasoning actually seems to make sense.”
For eighteen months she was in this pit – until one day… she learned to think differently about her thoughts….
Until she realized - she had a choice.
We have a choice.
She then
talked about this pit…
….and how
when we are in it the alternate reality becomes –
The fears
The doubts
The
restlessness
The pain
None of it is who we are.
Yah is
real, and I am valuable
My life
matters
He is
real.
I have an
enemy, and I let him beat me up for too long.
It was
over.
This is war.
And then she began to rise by doing some things on purpose that affected her thinking.
I’d like to share them with you today….
Allen
wrote
“Alone in the dark the devil can tell you whatever the hell he wants.”
“We are going to attack something most sane people wouldn’t dare to fight. Worse still, the reason they don’t fight it is that they don’t even recognize the fight is happening. They don’t realize there is an all-out assault against them. They don’t see the enemy coming for them. They don’t know they’re about to get trampled. They’re living completely unaware.”
And then …
“If our thought lives are the deepest, darkest places of stronghold within us, all hell will try to stop us from being free.
This is
how we do it:
“Day by day we fight to be the captors of our thoughts, rather than the ones taken captive.”
Allen talked about “Where thoughts are captured”
She said
We need to just work on taking ONE thought captive.
And … then
she asks…
“What if one thought held the power to interrupt our spirals and bring peace to our mental chaos?”
Peace to
our mental chaos?
That is a real thing?
Yes.
“We walk
around acting as if we have no power over what we allow into our minds.
If our toddler is throwing a fit in the grocery store, we correct him, redirect him - yet we have allowed our minds to have outright meltdowns with zero correction.”
So – We need a thought that can successfully interrupt every negative thought pattern.
It’s this: “I HAVE A CHOICE.”
“We are not subject to our thoughts. We have a choice because we are conquerors who possess weapons to destroy strongholds.”
The key is to interrupt the thoughts that are a problem – and recognize we have a choice about what to believe and fixate/ think on.
Do you
know, when we think new thoughts, we physically alter our brains? …We make healthier neural connections, we
blaze new trails, … and everything changes for us.
So instead
of spiraling downward:
Emotion à thought à behavior à relationships à consequence. L
My
thinking can spiral upward:
Emotion à thought à behavior à relationships à consequence J
John
16:33 p 772
“These things I have spoken to you, that in Me you. Might have shalom. In the world you shall have tribulation: but be of tov courage; I have overcome and conquered the world.”
Remember Resilience is seeing where we are…. And then turning and looking at Yahusha…
He told us
we’d have trouble in this world.
We live in
the dragon’s lair…
Okay…
And many of us know from our Discovering Mercy Course – that emotions come as a result of how we interpret experiences in our lives…
And
emotions are hard to deal with because they don’t keep our heart safe…
So then PROTECTION comes in… anger, confusion, and anxiety… etc..
Allen says “… once we recognize that a prevailing emotion is connected to outright, life-sucking lies, we begin to see that everything we need for life in God has been given to us already… which means we begin to heal and live lives that matter.”
Mental story map:
1. In the center of your paper – write down an emotion that you have been feeling lately.
2. Draw a circle around the word.
3. Around the circle, write everything you can think of that is contributing to that emotion. And draw smaller circles around each.
4. And under each small circle – list how this has been contributing to the main emotion (Like – lonely, feeling insecure about my body weight, feeling inadequate etc..)
The next
step is to talk to Yah about it.
Then look
for patterns and common themes in your circles..
Are you worrying about things you
can’t control?
Are you angry?
This is the slow, mapped out version of taking notice of our thinking….
“We don’t
just need our spiraling minds to stop, we need our minds to be redeemed.”
“Bondage
necessitates rescue.
Oppression
needs to be lifted.
Blindness
waits for sight.
Waywardness
must be transformed.”
Oh, you
might think, this is great self-help.
But we are
not about self-help –
We are about following Yahusha…. We are the sons and daughters of the King of the universe and we need to know that our identities are secured by the shed blood of Yahusha haMashiach.
How do we train ourselves to fight?
Proverbs
23:7 p 561
“For as he thinks in his leb, so is he.”
1.
Capture
the thought by facing it and recognizing “I HAVE A CHOICE”
2. Identify Truth
“Every toxic thought involves a wrong belief about Yahuah.”
“Standing between us and victory is one of three barriers – or perhaps all three:”
a.
The
devil
b.
Our
wounds
c. Our sin.
“We
tend to carry around deep hurt from our brokenness, rarely noticing it, never
dealing with it or healing from it.”
“The
most common trouble we face in this life takes the form of sin. OUR sin.”
- TESHUVAH!
3.
Spend
quiet time with Yahuah!
We
tend to prefer to keep busy….
Allen
says – “Because if I slowed down enough to look at my soul, I might be
overwhelmed by all that needed fixing in me.
I didn’t want to hear what God might say to me – or take the risk that
He would remain silent, hidden, deepening my doubt about His existence, His
love.”
Fears
that keep us from spending time with Yah
a. The fear of being put to work… I might have to forgive…
b. The fear of being asked to change… “Worse still, what if solitude reveals not just a specific action you need to take, but rather a broader issue you need to repent of? If we don’t carve out time when the Holy Spirit can help us assess the quality of our lives, then we convince ourselves we won’t have to assess the quality of our lives. – Not the best approach!”
c.
The
fear that you’re all alone in the world.
“I’m afraid that if I reached out to God, there would be nobody home to take my call.”
“Behind all three of these fears is a lie: I cannot face God as I am.”
“the
antidote to running from ourselves is running to the only One who helps us get
over ourselves. The lie is that we will be shamed. The truth is that God who is creator and
sovereign over the universe and the God who conquered sin and death is the same
God who wants to be with you in your pain, doubt, shame and other
circumstances. God’s kindness is meant
to lead you to repentance.”
“Connection with God is the foundation for every other God-given tool we have to fight with. We begin here because if supernatural change is what we want, we have to go to our supernatural God to find it.”
Galatians 5:22-23
4.
I
choose to be known
“If you want your child to thrive, then make him or her feel seen and loved.”
“We were built to be seen and loved.”
The fear here is – “If anyone really knew you, fear whispers, they’d leave you.”
So people choose self-preservation and isolate themselves.
BUT – “Disconnection, alters our brains.” - and not in a positive way!!
Choosing to be in community requires RISK
“We must be known, in order to be healthy.”
“Find
someone who is following HARD after (Yahusha) Jesus and then ask that person to
coffee.”
5.
Choose
to surrender my fears to YHUH
This
is the place of worrying about things that “might” happen.
The “What – Ifs”
What if… (bad thing) happens?
This is foreboding joy and it is fueled by scarcity and fear.
“The
tool for defeating “what if” is, found in two little words:
“Because YHUH…”
“Because God clothes the lilies of
the field and feeds the birds of the air, we don’t need to be anxious about
tomorrow.
Because God has poured His love into
our hears, our hope will not be put to shame.
Because God chose us to be saved by His strength, we can stand firm in our faith, no matter what the day holds.”
“Truth is the most powerful weapon we have against the enemy, who is a liar and the father of lies. So we fight the enemy with whatever is true.”
“ I had to go to war. I had to read Yah’s Word and find every weapon available to fight.”
We have exactly what we need.
We have a choice to trust instead of fear.
What do we
do when we start to spiral?
We do the
work.
We risk
telling someone.
We choose
to look at Yah instead of the fear thoughts.
We choose
to get in the Word
We choose
to worship
We choose
to remind ourselves who Yah is and tell Him our worries
We claim His peace as our promise.
But
cynicism might be a problem…
Allen says
“Cynicism
erodes our ability to see Yah rightly.”
Cynicism at its root is a refusal to believe that God is in control and God is good. Cynicism is interpreting the world and God based on HURAT you’ve experienced and the wounds that still lie gaping open. It forces you to look horizontally at people rather than vertically at God.”
And then
she explains her pit…
“What I couldn’t see then was that hurt was absolutely driving my behavior. I was so exhausted from everything – the oppression, the despair, the process of trying to find health – that I’d decided true joy probably just wasn’t attainable. What I thought was joy was really just the delight of chronic distraction.”
“The root of cynicism is crippling hurt. Cynicism says that nobody can be trusted, that we’re never ever safe.”
Philippians 4: 4-9
Cynicism crumbles in the presence of beauty.
Look with
awe at the world around you. See the
beauty.
See His
hand in it!
“Beauty interrupts us, it awakens us, it undoes us, it cuts us open, and restarts our hearts. Beauty is God’s evidence of something far more wonderful is coming, a world beyond the one we can imagine, even in the most spectacular moments here. A God better than what eh hope for. A God who blows our minds.”
6.
Choose
to Serve Yahuah and serve others
Humility
I
can never be enough…
I am only enough in Yahusha.
7.
Be
thankful/ Gratitude
Philippians 1:1-6
1.
Opens
the door to more relationships
2.
Improves
physical health
3.
Improves
psychological health
4.
Enhances
empathy and reduces aggression
5.
Improves
sleep
6.
Improves
self esteem
7. Increased mental strength
“Nothing has more impact to shift our minds and lives than knowing who we are
and the power and authority we have been given.”
It’s not
easy to stop believing lies.
So we train. We practice. Over and over again.
It isn’t easy – that’s why they call it a fight.
We choose
well –
We have a
choice.
We train our minds.
Sh’ma
Yisra’el
Amein and Amein
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