Psychological Spring Cleaning
With spring in the air and Easter approaching, I've been doing a lot of contemplating about my life, my relationship with God, and whether or not I'm living up the expectations he has for me and my life.
The little changes that I've been making in my life (eating healthier, limiting screen time, etc.) have come about by a feeling inside me that I can't quite put a name too. The best way I can describe it is a tugging feeling, a gut feeling telling me "this change needs to happen". I currently believe the reason is so I can be a happier, more optimistic person while also devoting more time in my life to God. Wait, no..."more time" isn't the right way to describe it..."while also devoting my life more fully to God", is more accurate. I don't want to just pencil God into my daily planner, like, "I'll see you at 8:30pm God, if I'm back from the gym in time..." I want God to be the base/axis of my life around which all things in it revolve.
These realizations have mainly come to be after this past Sunday's bible study. Some questions that arose at the end of our Bible study REALLY struck me. It was like one of those "holy cow" moments, complete with an imaginary lightning strike to my brain. The questions included:
• How has God's sacrificed love affected my life?
• (This week) did I love well?
• How have I failed to love God or others sacrificially?
• How is God calling me to sacrificed love right now?
After hearing these questions, I made an entirely scary realization: I am an extremely selfish person. God gave up his life for me, the ultimate sacrifice, and I can't even make it past 9:00am on a Monday without finding something to complain about. I've been carrying around this negative Nancy attitude without even realizing that I was the cause of it all along. I've heard the quote about how I'm the only person holding me back from being truly happy a million times, but the full meaning never quite sank in until now, or at least I never let it. And why? Why was I hanging on to those little bits and pieces of negativity in my life? The only conclusion I can come down to is due to the fact that I was filling my life with negative, meaningless activities which took up all the room for the important and positive things that need to take true priority in life. You put negativity in, and negativity is going to come out. I now have this burning desire to try my absolute best to fill my life with meaningful, beneficial, and positive thoughts, words, and actions. I want to have a life that God would not only approve of, but also be proud of.
My new mantra, which I read in the book A Woman After God's Own Heart by Elizabeth George, is this:
"God, what would You have me do - or think or say - here?"
In any situation I encounter, I want this to be the first thing that pops into my head.
If there's one lesson I've learned, it's that when the time is right, the unimporant things in your life have a way of weeding themselves out - thank goodness for that. Out with the old, in with the new. I guess these new-found realizations are what you could call "psychological spring cleaning".
♥ Jane
The little changes that I've been making in my life (eating healthier, limiting screen time, etc.) have come about by a feeling inside me that I can't quite put a name too. The best way I can describe it is a tugging feeling, a gut feeling telling me "this change needs to happen". I currently believe the reason is so I can be a happier, more optimistic person while also devoting more time in my life to God. Wait, no..."more time" isn't the right way to describe it..."while also devoting my life more fully to God", is more accurate. I don't want to just pencil God into my daily planner, like, "I'll see you at 8:30pm God, if I'm back from the gym in time..." I want God to be the base/axis of my life around which all things in it revolve.
These realizations have mainly come to be after this past Sunday's bible study. Some questions that arose at the end of our Bible study REALLY struck me. It was like one of those "holy cow" moments, complete with an imaginary lightning strike to my brain. The questions included:
• How has God's sacrificed love affected my life?
• (This week) did I love well?
• How have I failed to love God or others sacrificially?
• How is God calling me to sacrificed love right now?
After hearing these questions, I made an entirely scary realization: I am an extremely selfish person. God gave up his life for me, the ultimate sacrifice, and I can't even make it past 9:00am on a Monday without finding something to complain about. I've been carrying around this negative Nancy attitude without even realizing that I was the cause of it all along. I've heard the quote about how I'm the only person holding me back from being truly happy a million times, but the full meaning never quite sank in until now, or at least I never let it. And why? Why was I hanging on to those little bits and pieces of negativity in my life? The only conclusion I can come down to is due to the fact that I was filling my life with negative, meaningless activities which took up all the room for the important and positive things that need to take true priority in life. You put negativity in, and negativity is going to come out. I now have this burning desire to try my absolute best to fill my life with meaningful, beneficial, and positive thoughts, words, and actions. I want to have a life that God would not only approve of, but also be proud of.
My new mantra, which I read in the book A Woman After God's Own Heart by Elizabeth George, is this:
"God, what would You have me do - or think or say - here?"
In any situation I encounter, I want this to be the first thing that pops into my head.
If there's one lesson I've learned, it's that when the time is right, the unimporant things in your life have a way of weeding themselves out - thank goodness for that. Out with the old, in with the new. I guess these new-found realizations are what you could call "psychological spring cleaning".
♥ Jane
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