Me? A people pleaser? Not me! I’ve always felt confident about myself. It’s been a set of principles that guided and helped me to make decisions thus far. Of course I’ve always believed that it was by God’s hand that I’ve been able to do anything at all.
The symptoms
But I’ve always lived with a sense of being watched and evaluated by someone. Every decision I made was questioned in the back of mind. Within seconds, I’m imagining those around me questioning me about that particular decision. After that, I’m conjuring up all the ways I would explain myself.
The problem
I never felt anyone trusted my ability to make decisions. I feared rejection by everyone who would be affected by my decisions. The result was delayed decisions and simply undecided behavior. There was fear, and a lack of trust in myself. This was shrouded with a desire to please everyone.
The causes
One of the reasons for such things developing in me is due to my Amiable personality. It’s a good trait to have with a desire to be friendly and accommodating. But when coupled with self – doubt, it’s a road trip to disaster. You end up with an emotional gridlock that blocks everything you do.
The solution
The most important step is to see yourself as God sees you. I have list of ways God sees us in a previous post called A Life of Rejection
Of course those are things you are already aware of. But it’s time to apply these thoughts to yourself. Personalize it by putting your name with each of the ways God sees us. Allow God’s perspective to permeate our heart. Let that be the beginning of the road to replacing your self condemning perspective with God’s view of you.
The future
Let this be a beginning. It’s an important step towards freedom. For those who relate with such struggles, you know that this will not be an overnight change. It will be a gradual process of transformation.
It requires courage to step out into unchartered territory. You will feel out of place, like you are not to be like this. It will be a constant battle with fear and other inhibiting perspectives. The struggle will be worth the effort.
Take the step toward being free.
Your thoughts?
Please share your response in the comments section of this blog post directly on the website.
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This week, we have a guest post from Brooke Lynn, who is a writer, nurse, and a health and wellness enthusiast. You can read her bio and connect with her at the end of this post.
Have you ever been up high in a dangerous and precarious place hearing the advice, “Don’t look down”? To the contrary, I believe there’s a time to suggest, “Looking down!” When we feel overwhelmed with fear or worry, we may need to contemplate exactly where we are, how far we have come, and what we are facing. This requires looking down, or rather “within ourselves”.
If we look down we can see how far we have moved up, recognizing we are standing on top of our challenging past we’ve pushed through and overcome. We can see underneath us and glance into what happened making us the person we’ve become. We gain a different perspective into the truth about ourselves. Looking Down reveals choices we’ve made, bad and good. The decisions we’ve made, wrong or right. Looking down can offer us a sense of purpose and accomplishment. This can also provide an optimal way to pray and ask God to search our hearts for anyone we need to forgive. We can ask Him to reveal any guilt holding us hostage we need to release, for strength in our daily lives, and for healing in our brokenness and pain.
When we face the fear of looking down, it can help us grasp reality and recognize we are secure in Christ. Fear itself is what makes us anxious. We need to turn over anything to God that keeps us from advancing higher. It is God’s will we move closer to Him daily in relationship and grow more into His likeness. This is a lifelong process and journey He will guide us through. As we move to a higher place with more responsibilities and growing pains, don’t be afraid to look down!
I’ve had to learn how to look down, within myself, facing God and asking Him to reveal my true motives and intentions. I’ve endured a life of pain, tragedy, and dysfunction migrating to a time when I refused to live in it any longer. More than anything I wanted healing and peace, instead of living in torrential fear and anxiety. With years of prayer, therapy and growing closer to God, I have gained courage and strength to receive God’s healing and I am revealing my true life story to the world, so God may work through my life to help others.
I have written a book called Raised by Strangers. Released on November 1st, 2014. When I was just five years old, I was kidnapped and forced to live a life burdened with cruel and bizarre physical and emotional abuse. My will to survive, inspired by an invisible hope, helped me fight the demons and stay alive as I endured haunting experiences. This book chronicles my true life story full of forbidden secrets driven by darkness and deception. First birthed into a marriage of teenage parents and their destructive relationship, I was later kidnapped, given away, and ultimately raised by strangers who tortured me. In a desperate attempt to escape my abuse and evil caretaker, I tried to murder her. Through this gripping story, I share ways I have learned to overcome my horrendous past and rise above the ugliness of humanity with faith and forgiveness. This book is raw with reality and will help the reader discover how a life of adversity and mistakes can become a message of hope.
Learn the power of hope. Find the courage and strength for healing within yourself, how to face your fears, forgive offenses, and live a life of freedom. You will learn your past doesn’t have to define you or forecast your future.
Brooke Lynn is a writer, nurse, and a health and wellness enthusiast. She transparently reveals her life experiences, struggles and triumphs with abuse, poverty, marital demise, parenting, and eating disorders helping others find the courage and strength for healing. She educates and creates awareness about eating disorders, sharing her 26 year battle and recovery. She has served as a children’s praise and worship leader, worked with middle and high school students, and also served on church prayer teams with a heart for intercessory prayer. She passionately motivates people into a deeper level of faith while encouraging them to love and accept themselves. She resides in the Washington D.C. area, has been married for eighteen years with two teenage children.
Get her book Raised by Strangers,
On the web BrookeLynnBooks.com, Connect on Twitter, Facebook -
“Hey look, I want to live for God, but something keeps pulling me back. When I take one step forward, I’m pulled back two steps.” These words were from a young man I reached out to while pastoring in Sunrise, Florida.
The Will is Weakened
He had lived a life of sin and went away from God for so long that it seemed impossible for him to take a firm step. He wanted to follow Jesus, but he just couldn’t overcome the force pulling him back.
Repeated falling away from God’s ways puts a person on a steep path toward more sin. It’s some sort of spiritual bondage that seems impossible to break. The person’s will is weakened and cannot take a firm step in the right direction.
Spiritual Bondage
The book of Hosea says that these people experience a “spirit of whoredom” that keeps people bound and pulls them away from God (Hos 5:4).This “spirit” keeps the person going in the opposite direction when God’s Spirit calls them. The person may have the desire, but it will seem like an impossible task to turn to God.
How can we help such a person? Maybe you are in such a trap and need to be free.
Steps to Freedom
Ownership
Take ownership of all your sinful actions. Acknowledge you have sinned and done what is against God and his word. This opens up the channel for the Holy Spirit to begin his work in your life. Until you acknowledge and take ownership of your sinful behavior, there is little hope of freedom.
Confession
Confess every sin to God. Tell him you are sorry for your sins. Ask him for forgiveness. He will wash you clean with the power of the cross through the blood of Jesus. Then by faith, receive the forgiveness he gives you.
Decision
By an act of your will, decide to walk away from sinful behaviors. Note that our first two steps honestly and earnestly taken before God will begin to break the bondages in your life. This important step toward freedom will allow you to make such an important decision. It’s a 360 degree turn away from your old lifestyle to God’s ways.
Reminder
Write down this decision and keep it in a prominent place as a “milestone,” a constant reminder. You may want to keep it on your desk, wallet, or phone. Find a place where you will repeatedly look throughout the day. The old desires will continue to haunt you, but remember to yield to God’s Spirit and to his promptings.
I wish you well on your way toward freedom from everything that holds you back.
Your thoughts?
I would love to hear from you. Please leave a comment directly on the blog post.
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So there he stands. Rejected, ignored, and fooled by our shallow promises. Jesus gave us his love, his promises, and ultimately himself. But we just don’t think of him much.
Just Too Busy
We haven’t rejected God. It’s just that we have been so busy with all our “important” matters. And truly they are important. In our busy life, we have just missed the great privilege of our relationship with God.
He wants to have a close and intimate relationship with us. Naturally we would have all the benefits of such a relationship. But we’ve been too busy.
Right Intentions
But all the “doing” was really for God. We live to glorify God. We work to please God. We do it all in his name and for his honor. But we’ve missed God.
We have no one to blame for the losses and brokenness we face. We have ignored God and his requirements (Hos 4:6).
Grab the Opportunity
Remind yourself that the greatest asset in your life is your relationship with God. No other relationship on earth is so valuable. Keep God in the forefront of your thoughts and your daily activities.
In every struggle, make a short one sentence prayer your connection with God. Throughout the day, speak to him briefly and express your joys, frustrations and thoughts. He is waiting. Will you connect with him?
Your thoughts?
Leave your response in the comments section of this blog post.
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Seventeen years of chronic back pain coupled with lots of emotional issues plunged me into an impossible situation. It seemed like a future without hope. Each MRI report showed further deterioration of my disks. Even daily tasks were a painful process. I finally asked my doctor: “Will I eventually be crippled for life?” He struggled to slip out of that question.
The Impossible Happened
After about two years of emotional healing coupled with a miraculous touch from God, my back was completely healed. I was able to resume all my previous physical activities just as before.
Working Through Mental Agony
The two-year process of healing involved lots of journaling. Issues from my childhood through adult years were expressed in the journaling process. Lots of reading (specifically a book on back pain), lots of agonizing, and lots of prayer went into the writing of those journals.
The Facebook Push
After my back was healed, I posted a photo of me playing basketball on Facebook. Through posts, messages, and emails, people began asking about the healing. That led me to write out my story in detail and I posted it on my “dormant” blog. This was the kind of push that I needed to get me on the writing path.
An Ongoing Quest for Freedom
My healing was really a quest for freedom. It wasn’t a freedom from others and their words and actions. But it was a freedom from my own victim mentality and emotional quagmire.
The process of healing and quest for freedom continues even now. My blog is an ongoing expression of that quest. Although I write on a lot of topics, most of my posts are written from this perspective of living free.
Living Your Potential
I believe that only when you move toward freedom can you live your potential. Otherwise you will be stagnant and dragged around by all the emotional hang-ups.
An Invitation for You
Do you have a strong urge to please everyone, do everything, and be everywhere? I want to help you live with freedom and focus. Join me in the Journey as we process life and how to live it with freedom and focus.
When you subscribe to receive updates from my blog, you will also get a free copy of my book Living Your Potential.
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“If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him.” This statement by Voltaire was quoted by Dr. Vilayanur Ramachandran, who runs the University of California, San Diego’s center for Brain and Cognition. Dr. Ramachandran claims that he has found certain parts of the brain, in the temporal lobe that may make people more prone to believe in God.
Dr. Ramanchandran noticed that statements about God or religious matters induced a measurable amount of stimuli in the brain. That stimuli corresponds with an electrochemical reaction in the brain that is quite distinct from responses from other violent and sensual stimuli.
If it is true that the brain has a built in “God-module”, how must we react to that? Has God put in something physically that will attract us to Him? Does Dr. Ramachandran’s theory have any connection with the “God-shaped vacuum” idea that is so often spoken of? Do those who do not know God have any understanding of Him? Does He expect them to know?
Paul made it clear that “Even when Gentiles, who do not have God’s written law, instinctively follow what the law says, they show that in their hearts they know right from wrong. They demonstrate that God’s law is written within them, for their own consciences either accuse them or tell them they are doing what is right” Romans 2:14-15 (NLT).
God has revealed himself to us in the person of Jesus Christ. Through a personal relationship with Jesus, we can live to the fullest extent o f God’s plan for us. God has put his laws within our hearts for this one purpose: that we would seek and turn to him.
It is not certain if Dr. Ramachandran’s assertions are accurate. But we know what the Biblical author has indicated in Romans. God’s plan for mankind from the beginning is for us to be in a proper relationship to Him. Jesus has opened the way for us to draw near to God. Yes, there is something in us that draws us to the one who has created us. God put it there to bring you to Jesus.
Your thoughts on God consciousness?
I would love to hear from you. Please leave your response in the comments section of this blog post by clicking here.
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Is there any good in failure and sin? Although the answer is NO, there is a bright side. To really know God, you need to fall, fail, and sin. Then you have an opportunity to know God’s true character of forgiveness and love (note: We are all sinners. Some acknowledge it, others ignore it and fake spirituality.).
Those who don’t fail (or think they don’t), have an unrealistic view of life. They become judgmental and angry at those “sinners” who can’t get their act together.
We surely don’t want to encourage sinfulness and Failure, but we know that times of dryness, failure, and sinful backsliding are surely damaging. Yet God can turn everything around and bring complete restoration (Hos 3:4-5).
Your thoughts?
– Please leave your response in the comments section of this blog post.
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Several years ago I was driving through the streets of Bangalore with a friend from Mumbai. He was astonished at the sight of several cars making illegal turns, in full view of the traffic police! The police went about their jobs as if nothing unexpected is happening. He remarked that “this would never be tolerated in Bombay-immediately they would be stopped and fined.” My response to him was “hey, this is a free country-we have freedom from the law.”
Several weeks after that incident, I was astounded at the sight of a policeman accepting bribe in the middle of an intersection. The truck was attempting to make an illegal turn, but the traffic police stopped them. They continued to attempt the turn, when the policeman walked in front of the truck with his handout, blowing his whistle signaling them to stop. Finally, a man nonchalantly stepped out of the passenger side of the truck, and put some money into hand of the policeman. The policeman turned around as if he saw nothing, and the truck made the turn. The area was full of vehicles and people, and it was done with no shame, guilt, or hesitance. It was Just “part of the job.”
Paul said in Galatians 5:13, “you, my brothers, were called to be free. But do not use your freedom to indulge in the sinful nature, rather, serve one another in love.” In the natural realm, freedom is misused so often that it has almost become the norm. In the spiritual realm, Paul is encouraging believers to use spiritual freedom with responsibility.
No longer are we bound to the sinful nature. We have been freed from the clutches of sin. Now, we are free. This freedom was free to us, but not cheap. Jesus paid dearly on the cross. It is our responsibility to use our freedom in a way that brings glory to God. Others should observe our lives and say, “look, they are not bound like we are. They are really free!”
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You saw it with your own eyes, heard it with your own ears. So has others. There is no doubting the evidence. What will you do?
They are wrong, rebellious, and clearly at fault! We feel justified in our judgement. And surely we are not as bad as they are. Its kind of a good feeling when others fall in their sinfulness. Our “feel good factor” rises a few points. This causes us to push further with our judgement of others.
Mary carried the clear evidence of sin against God, society, and the one she was about to marry. What more evidence would one want? But Joseph wanted to show some grace by putting her away quietly, rather than making a big ruckus. Was it forgiveness? No, but to some extent he was showing grace.
But God intervened and gave his explanation for the evidence. Now the evidence could be seen from a new perspective. Same evidence, different perspective.
So be considerate and merciful of others even when there is evidence for judgment. God has the last word (Matt 1:19-20).
Your thoughts?
– Please leave your response in the comments section of this blog post.
***Sign up for my devotional thoughts on Blog by Alexi This blog is a reflection on life as it comes. Sometimes it comes with great joy and delight and at other times it hits us in the face with conflict and agony. It’s a journey through life and journey through the scriptures to guide us.
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When my mother suffered terribly for several years with cancer, I heard some shocking comments like this: “It’s a shame and disgrace to God’s name that your mother is suffering with Cancer.” There were some people who felt that when we suffer, it makes God look bad and less people will follow him.
Maybe this is a conclusion that is logical and in the minds of many. But only a few would share such thoughts with others. Still, it is there in the minds of many.
But when Jesus suffered in the cruelest way possible, a Roman soldier made a public proclamation about him that was astounding: “Truly this was the Son of God!” (Matt 27:54) Then further: “Certainly this man was innocent!” (Luke 23:47)
Suffering can bring confusion, but it also brings clarity. Certainly that Roman soldier had heard about the claims of Jesus being the Son of God, the Messiah. Although these designations may have not made sense to him as a non-Israelite, he recognized a sense of divinity in Jesus.
On the cross, when one of the criminals mocked Jesus, the other one said: “Do you not fear God, since you are under the same sentence of condemnation? And we indeed justly, for we are receiving the due reward of our deeds; but this man has done nothing wrong.” Somehow, throughout the whole ordeal of suffering, this person understood the innocence of Jesus. Maybe the innocent suffer differently than the guilty.
In addition to that recognition, faith was expressed by this criminal as well. He said: “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.” Then Jesus affirmed him with these words: “Truly, I say to you, today you will be with me in Paradise” (Luke 23:39-43). His response was not just a fleeting interest in Jesus. Rather it was faith that was genuine enough to bring salvation.
None of us desire suffering in any way. But when we do, it’s good to remove fear and trust that God’s name will be glorified. It’s not a problem for unbelievers to know about our sufferings. This is part of life here on earth, and we have God with us as our comfort and strength. Then in the end, God will be glorified.Your thoughts?
– Please leave your response in the comments section of this blog post.
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