Triumph OVER Your Trials! Through Thankfulness!

Every day should be a day of thanksgiving! Whether our day is going great, horrible, or anywhere in between, thanksgiving should be an outworking of our willingness to agree with what God’s Word says about our lives! Not based off of an emotional reaction to our circumstance.

When I first was learning this principle, I saw that thankfulness did not necessarily change my circumstance (immediately), however it did alter my attitude or outlook on life while I was awaiting breakthrough of that circumstance!

1 Timothy 4:4-5 NIV, “For everything God created is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving, 5 because it is consecrated by the word of God and prayer.”

To me that speaks that everything we go through is God-filtered. Whether we are learning a lesson from having made a wrong choice, and reaping the consequence – we can thank God for showing us the more excellent way to go the next opportunity. Or as it says in the next scripture:

2 Corinthians 4:15-16 NIV, “All this is for your benefit, so that the grace that is reaching more and more people may cause thanksgiving to overflow to the glory of God.  16 Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day.”

Which to me means that even when we are doing the right thing, and get tired or challenged through obstacles, we can activate our faith to overcome, not as a means of punishment, but as a stepping stone to enlarge us, our faith, and our view over what our circumstances dictate to us at that time.

So often, I can attest to days that have been very difficult, yet I WILLFULLY CHOSE to have an attitude of gratitude over the route to doubt and pout. It was not easy at first.  However, the more I made a  conscious decision each day to make the ‘right’eous choices in God’s Word even when it was not easy, I found my life becoming more victorious in outlook, faith and personal pursuit!

What giant obstacle or little hurdles are you facing on today?  Are you prevailing over a persistent problem? Or are you experiencing an inhibited by an unexpected interruption? 

Whatever your day -either way – resist the urge to surrender to fear, doubt, and worry - the weights of this world. Whether you feel like it or not, speak those things that be not as though they were! 

As you speak out loud the opposite of how you feel about your circumstance, your faith will be activated and before you know it, you will operate at a whole other level! Hearing yourself agree with God’s ways concerning your life diffuses the weakness to succumb to self-doubt and disbelief.

Instead of, “I know I always mess things up, so why am I trying?” I can just as easily declare, “Thank you Lord that I can do all things through you so I take you at your Word today.”  Speaking out loud over your circumstance is not only an act of YOUR WILL, but an act of your FAITH. NO ONE ELSE can do it for you.

Declare your victory over your misery!

As long as what you declare does not contradict with God’s Word and will for your life, you will become emotionally victorious over your situation, and before you know it you will experience real breakthrough with your situation!

However hard it seems at first, know that an attitude of gratitude always goes a long way, and keeps our eyes on the one that we should be thankful to every day anyway!

Thankfully His \O/

 

 

No Worries!

Make it a point NOT be anxious! Choose to see as God sees. Seek Him first in all things versus your own striving or understanding, and the nag of worry will leave you quickly!

So often it is so easy to pick up our cares again to try to fix things, because our natural mind desires to control everything. However, we were never designed to hold worry. There's no place in our physical DNA ever designed to successfully house worry.   Worry infringes on our health, creates chaos and even disrupts our ability to think or act with clarity.

 That is why the Word tells us, “Romans 12:2, “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the good, acceptable and perfect will of God"

"Worry" has never been a direct or indirect fruit of God's intended Will!

Yet, over many years, I have often witnessed how people who are good at worrying make great intercessors.  Because the level of concern over a matter can either negatively be used to drain us, OR positively aimed toward the face of God in faith and praise to see how He will bring it to pass. A spiritual mother, and mentor of mine when I first was being discipled in the Lord once told me, "Wow the enemy of your soul would love to trap you here, because the Lord is actually calling you to be a very powerful intercessor! She encouraged me that once I learned how to challenge that same drive and energy that I put in what could go wrong, and learn how to put faith in God into what can go right, I would be an unstoppable force against the darkness that was trying to come against me, my family, and my faith!

Plus, we reap when we choose to live in "God's Will" placing our trust more in Him over the fear of a problem!

That is why in John 10:4, it states, "…... Ask My Spirit to give you this discernment... My sheep know my voice and follow me wherever I lead."

When we learn to distinguish between the voice of the Lord versus distracting detractors – such as inner conversations of doubt, and the outside expectation of others - we will be able kick confusion from our lives completely.

It is time to recognize the unique journey God has called us each to, and that can only happen when we tune out the noise of the world in order to remain sensitive to Him.  More than what we desire, the Lord desires our yieldedness to Him that He can be our true and continual companion along the way when we open our hearts for Him to speak into our lives every step of the way!

Would you pray this prayer in agreement with me? "Lord Jesus, I ask that you would help me to become the woman of God you are ultimately have called me to become. I realize in so many ways, I have compromised the calling you have on my life by circumventing the process of learning how to abandon my strength for yours--to trust you completely. Today I turn to you. I trust you. I ask you to once again not only be my Savior, but I invite your Lordship into my life. I invite your direction, your protection, your guidance, your Word, your wisdom in the matter. When I am unsure and uncertain of your heart in the matter, teach me once again to be still and know that you are God. When you speak to advance forward in faith in the face of the unknown or when I am fearful, help me to forsake all other reservations that arise from my own inadequacies. To yet do it afraid with the saving knowledge that you are there to catch me every step of the way. I pray now, in Jesus Name! \0/"