April 2018 – justsomegoodthoughts

warning Can you imagine waking up one day only to find out that many things you thought were true were actually false? What if your tried and sure method of ’cause and effect’ had effects based on unknown causes? Could it be that the images sitting right before your eyes have been manipulated to lead you and your human reasoning astray? Are all of the elements in your chain of logic, real elements? What if you challenged your assumptions? Would it change your life?

If there is one spot where us humanoids get tripped up, it’s in the assumptions we make about life. We have been so schooled to revere the information presented by “what it looks like” that we take hook, line and sinker the conclusion that has been presented for us in advance. If we live amidst a surface world alone we could confidently take things at their face value. But, what if we don’t? What if there is a whole spiritual world working behind the scenes all part of the grand drama of life? What if we are all participants in a contest, whether we know it or not, and are making decisions and drawing conclusions that will ultimately determine our outcomes? Finally, what if we had the ability to shape and form our reality instead of being victims of it?

The spiritual competition that rages day by day is a competition for the allegiance of your mind; your thoughts. What you think about, what you hold in your mind greatly influences the reality you experience. There are right thoughts and there are wrong thoughts. Some thoughts lead to good results, while other thoughts lead you down the rabbit hole of error. All right thoughts come from goodness (God) who is seeking your allegiance. He needs your cooperation to do all the good for you that He has planned. All wrong thoughts ultimately come from evil (the devil); are always cleverly disguised as logical, reasonable or realistic, and when held onto produce all manner of difficulty and defeat. The source of wrong and error also seeks your allegiance and he gains it by getting you to think and act in opposition to goodness.

People today know relatively little about the impact their thoughts have on their life. For instance, people feel there is no need for any checks and balances in their thought life. They simply think whatever, whenever, however. They aren’t able to discern a need to control their thinking and even falsely conclude that thinking cannot be controlled. You hear it with phrases such as, “My mind just won’t shut off!” The responsibility to stop thinking certain thoughts or to decide when to think certain thoughts rests entirely with you, the owner of your mind. Your mind working at cross purposes with you is in reality your failure to take the helm and draw-in the reigns when necessary.

I read the other day where a Life Coach stated that worry was beneficial because it helped you to resolve your problems. Well, here’s a newsflash, if worrying actually helped resolve problems then it would have a logical end point! But, it doesn’t have an end point because the solution lies outside of your senses driven mind, hence why it continues on and on and on. The only way to defeat worry it to stop scratching that itch! Resist the temptation to try to figure it out, you aren’t going to be successful. Worry is part of a deceptive trigger that begins with doubt, is established with worry and culminates in fear which brings the hammer of destruction to you! Worrying, like being afraid is wrong thinking coming from the wrong source seeking to bring you a wrong result! Refusing to entertain fearful thoughts is not being fanciful or unrealistic (lies) it is thinking properly and leading towards a sound mind. God doesn’t need fear to keep you vigilant or safe. Instead God needs your cooperation in thinking properly.

Though fear certainly holds the number one spot in beating people, there are other thoughts that serve only to drag you down to defeat and loss. Those thoughts are thoughts that take you out of the moment of time you are living in and either drag you back to your past or foolishly anticipate forward the potential difficulties of tomorrow. Whatever you did in the past, bad enough and terrible enough to demand space in your mind today, occurred in the past and lives on no longer except in your memories. In terms of redemption and forgiveness, Jesus Christ paid the price for every stupid or insane thing you or I ever got caught up in. Good thinking says the error is over with and should be forgotten. Wrong thinking, whether clothed in religious piety or required to pay the so-called debt, does not lead to resolution or recompense, but rather drags the owner to a slow and painful death. Guilt has no other purpose than to break down its host to further decay. In similar fashion, worries over the future complete with grand, detailed pictures of future suffering serve only to alarm the mind and from its shaken up state, lead to further miscalculations and conclusions. God can fix or repair anything! That is a good thought worth holding onto…

The optimum way to be a successful human being is to control your thinking. Think thoughts God says to think and reject thoughts that are in opposition to those thoughts. It doesn’t matter what well-rehearsed reasons you have developed for holding on to your error. What matters is if you will obey goodness and get a good result. What I’m suggesting may go against all you have ever thought and concluded. Well, good!!! Maybe it’s time some of those assumptions you have been doggedly clutching to should be given their exit! Maybe you need to rethink what it means to be realistic or practical or whatever other word you are using to justify the continuance of error!

You can live in peace with feelings of love and joy and happiness if you will learn to think how God says to think. Don’t fight any longer for error, fight for the truth instead. It feels better…

Just some good thoughts…

images After going through a particularly rough patch at work recently, I began musing what if anything I might be doing to contribute to my difficulties. The more I thought about it, the more I asked myself, “What exactly was I expecting at my job day by day?” Were my expectations positive and beneficial to my experience or were my expectations negative or fearful, leading to predictable trouble? The answer to those questions are the answers to your own life questions. What do you expect?

Similar to the old riddle, the chicken and the egg, comes a new riddle. Do your expectations and beliefs produce the reality you are experiencing or does the reality you are experiencing produce your expectations and beliefs? And although they would be reticent to admit it, I think most folks believe the latter. In other words, if things are going badly for them or if they’re experiencing difficulty and trouble, how would they be able to not expect more of the same? If it walks like a duck and talks like a duck, it’s a duck… Or, is it? What if your present reality is based upon your most recent, predominant, expectations? What if you are contributing to your own misery by the power of your own negative expectations? I’m guessing no-one would expect negative results if they realized the impact it had on their reality? Well, what do you expect?

It is infinitely easier to think that our lives are playing out in some grand drama whereby things are hurled at us unannounced and without rhyme or reason. However, on the surface alone this should show itself untrue. Does it really seem plausible that God is in the heavens passing out blessings and cursings at random to test and try or bless and benefit His creation? Would it be logical to assume that some people are highly favored and others are despised; some enjoy good things while others live in misery, all by chance or happenstance? Nay my friend, you know that isn’t true! What you think and believe forms the basis of what you expect and you get what you expect. Negativity, like positivity, is a persuasion coming from conclusions formed within yourself. The circumstances, good or bad, don’t decide your ultimate conclusions, you do! When you live in negativity, always expecting things to go wrong or for difficulties to get worse, you have been persuaded thus and will continue along the same lines as long as you continue along the same lines! What do you expect?

All of us think we are mostly positive and would swear by it. But, the acid test is revealed by what you say out loud. Do you want to know what kind of things you are expecting to happen in your life? Well, just listen to the things you say to other people. When people ask how you are doing, what do you answer? Or, do you even give it any thought before you belt out the well rehearsed, “fine.” What things do you say to people over and over again about your life? Those things, said in jest or not, are what you expect for your life. What are you excited about happening in your life? If the answer is nothing, call me crazy, but I would say your expectation is negative! If you now, since reading that, are trying to confabulate some mundane realities into something more exciting, your expectation is probably negative. Do you expect negative results?

It may surprise you to know that expecting good things takes no more energy than expecting bad things. However, because we live in such a dreadfully negative world, we have become accustomed to getting negative results. When things are going well for us we engage in silly superstitions like knocking on wood to keep the good continuing. Or, we have been conditioned that as soon as we announce something positive is happening, watch out, evil is preparing to get us (Don’t jinx it, right?)! Our job therefore is to escape the madness and focus on the good instead! We have to learn how to refute the negativity we are bombarded with and see, by our own determination, good results before we see good results. We have to make ourselves picture a good result. God, how weird, right? Profound thought ~ if you cannot even see a picture of the things you want in your life, the chances of you getting those results are minute if not highly improbable! Please go back and read that sentence again! Because it is what you will expect!

I’m completely aware that not everyone living is dwelling amidst some grand disaster needing immediate rescue. I would guess most people aren’t. Yet, I would submit that most people are living a life less than the life they would like to live. We may fantasize about living by the ocean when we are by the ocean, but when the vacation is over we shuffle back to our routine. It’s like we are always waiting for the circumstances to reveal what we desire is coming pass, so that we can get onboard with it happening, when in reality the circumstances will only come to pass after we have gotten onboard with it happening. Truly a world of riddles! Humans have dreams even if they are only flashes into something sublime they would like for themselves. Pursue the flashes. Explore the revelation. Dare to see something different for yourself completely not based on your current experience or reality. I know it’s unclear! I know it’s only hazy and vague! That’s why you aren’t living it now! Sharpen the image. God has already promised to bless you. However, He needs your cooperation. Start looking for God’s blessings like you’d look for a missing piece of jewelry! (Like it’s already there – get it?) You’ll find what you expect to find.

By now you might say, what if I expect good things and nothing good happens? Well, you can always get back to expecting the worst and keep on navigating through the storms of life until you finally have had enough. Let today be the day you have had enough! All the good there is, is here waiting for you. Will you expect it?

Just some good thoughts

justsomegoodthoughts

Month: April 2018

Challenge Your Assumptions…

What Do You Expect?