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As you take steps towards choosing the lifestyle you want to live, preparing yourself for a new year to come, take time to ask the Lord to help you become more self-aware.

Being aware of your own issues and weaknesses will help you overcome stepping into the role of becoming your own worst enemy as you take steps forward.

It’s a process and growth journey, but the Lord will be our help as we faithfully trust Him to show us what we need to know and do in order to overcome the obstacles we create for ourselves.

Who we surround ourselves with is important.

I am talking about our inner circle. We eventually become like those we spend the most time with. Even those people who believe that they are being a good influence on others, will themselves be influenced by those they often come in contact with. It is in our human nature to behave this way.

If your inner circle consists of individuals who are cynical, negative and fall into the belief that we are who we are and we do not need to change or grow, then that will impact how you think and believe as well.

If you want change and growth in your own personal life, surround yourself with people that want the same for themselves. You can find accountability with others that are seeking accountability for themselves as well. And along with accountability, you find great encouragement and support.

A lot of us gauge where we should be in our lives by comparing and observing the lives around us. This can positively compel some of us to go after meaningful and life impacting ambitions and changes.

While for others, this can provide the excuses and justifications our brains are looking for to remain as we are if those we are observing have have become stagnant and have little growth.

A lot of people allow their circumstances to dictate how they live their lives, rather than taking responsibility for their choices. Life pulls them along and they only have energy and strength to survive.

However, when we begin to be smart with our choices and learn that what we do today impacts our tomorrow, then we find ourselves in the drivers seat leading our life rather than being thrashed around by it.

We still can not control what happens to us, but we can learn how to control how we respond and how to meet each wave head on.

Choose your inner circle wisely and watch the rest unfold in your life.

This is growth and maturity.

 

In pursuing after the right habits you want to build into your life in order to reach the lifestyle vision you have in your heart, ask yourself what choices you make for yourself, or that you desire to make for yourself, that you are most proud of.

Choices that you are proud of are the ones that deep within you you know are the best to make on a consistent basis. And if that is so, those are the habits you should focus on building into your life.

Choices that you are not proud of, your bad habits, are of course what you want pulled out of your life. However, in order to stop doing the things you don’t want to do, you need to mentally replace them with choices that are good for you.

For example, if you are trying to stop wasting your time scrolling through social media, find a new hobby or habit to focus on in order to replace your unwanted habit.  Then work to build that new habit into your brain where your brain responds positively to the new habit and loses its taste for the bad habit.

Building the right habits into your life is something that does not come easily, but it is something that you can work towards with one habit at a time. Set your mind as if training for a marathon rather than a short race with this. Allow yourself time to work on one habit at a time. Develop a timeframe that is practical and that will train your brain to seek out the healthy dopamine from your smarter choices.

You want to get to a place where you feel proud of the choices you make every single day.  And at the end of the day, when you lie your head on your pillow, you can find rest more easily because you know the choices you have made for that day are truly expressing the person you know you are within.

 

As we come to the holidays and closer to ending out the year of 2024, I wanted to share the habits I picked up this year (or re-picked up) and how I was able to be the most productive I have ever been in my life with the things I WANTED to be productive in.

I am sharing this with you to encourage and motivate you to continue to wrap up your year well, but to also begin thinking about what you want to focus on in the new year and after all the craziness of the holidays.

I have found that giving myself time to sit and think about the changes I want to make in my life really is not time wasted. It is difficult for many of us to find that time within these next two months, but if you can carve that time out it will be a gift you can give yourself for Christmas!

There will be trials we must walk through and endure in this life. We cannot sidestep them or run the other way, we must bravely take them on.

We don’t do this alone, however.

We reach for God’s hand and allow Him to lead us through.

We will feel pressed in on all sides, but still we are not alone.

The pressing in will begin to surface what has been hidden in our hearts. It will expose lies and beliefs not true to our own awareness that have been harboring unaware within.

But the Lord has seen these lies and has desired for them to become uncovered. And in His faithfulness and goodness, He has allowed our individual trials to bring us revelation of what needs to be changed within.

Our beliefs and truths shape our thinking and emotions. And our choices are made out of those convictions.

If we keep on living out of hidden false beliefs and lies, then we will continue to make poor choices and remain stuck when we are supposed to be maturing and growing.

The next struggle or trial you walk through, still yourself for a moment to hear what lies are coming to the surface of your heart.

Let them be exposed.

Write them out and then ask the Lord to show you the truth, His truth, that counteracts and stamps out those misconceptions.

And begin the habit of meditating on these truths, choosing to allow them to override what used to keep you in place and stagnant.

Let your trials be used by God to set you more and more free from deception and false beliefs.

 

Dealing with troubles in this life is not a popular topic covered within Western churches, and as a result many Christians are caught off guard and left unsettled when they must endure difficulty. Yet verses throughout the Bible touch on suffering for God and for being His righteous ones plenty.

These same believers become disillusioned, therefore, whenever they do face suffering and pain within the trials they walk through. They find themselves not prepared when the enemy and the world comes against them. And they lose confidence in their right standing with God and in hope under the weight of the valley season.

When we study the Bible and allow it to penetrate our hearts in meditation, we can find our divinely provided source of comfort, encouragement and the truth of what we will endure as a result of choosing to follow Christ wholeheartedly.

“The righteous person may have many troubles, but the Lord delivers him from them all.” Psalm 34:19

However, God will be our deliverer out of every trouble and trial we endure. That is a promise we can hold onto with hope and faith.

This too shall pass, Friend, this too shall pass.

If I could go back in time and share one of the most powerful bites of wisdom to my younger self that I have learned the hard way as an adult, I would. And that advice would be: to not allow myself to be pulled down by others and engage with them in their mind games.

Too many times in my life have I been caught completely off guard by people who had wrong motives and tried to hurt and manipulate me by being confusing, unclear with their intentions and covert in how they would passively cause harm.

And it took me longer then it should have to learn that the wrong behavior of others would be hard for me to detect when I, naively believed their kind words spoken to my face instead of believing what their actions were speaking.

Words can be deceptive, but consistent behavior speaks of one’s true intentions.

Wanting to believe the best in others, which I will always do, led me to ignore actions that were clearly revealing a person’s heart. Instead I fell for the honey flowing from their speech.

God is clear in His Word that He looks at the heart of a person in His judgement rather than outward appearances. The heart is behind behavior, not what mask is put before you.

God even rebukes the Israelites for giving Him lip service while their hearts and actions showed they were far from Him.

Clearly we’re not God, but we can learn wisdom from His relationship with Israel. We can make our judgements about others based on their behavior. If someone’s words and actions conflict a lot, then they are playing mind games with us. It’s okay to make that observation in your mind and refuse to engage with what they are doing.

Individuals who manipulate, lie and even gaslight to get their way and control over others play these mind games. And we can simply choose to not participate and ignore what they are doing. They are looking for a reaction from us, so the best response is no reaction.

Believe their behavior, recognize the manipulative game they are playing, do not pick up your game piece and, refusing to play along, walk away.

The world we are living in is producing more and more people who desire to control and manipulate others in order to get what they want. And choosing to use the gaslighting tactic to manipulate others can cause great damage to the recipient of such abuse.

Gaslighting is used in order to cause the victim to question what they know to be true and real. It creates confusion and doubt and can push a person to feel unstable mentally.

This covert type of abuse can go undetected for a long time. Sometimes it is unintentional behavior as a defense mechanism, but often when gaslighting is involved within a trusted relationship or community the gaslighting is done on purpose to control the will of others.

When we yield ourselves to the Lord, giving over to Him our lives, we are choosing not to be our own god.

As followers of Christ, choosing Jesus to be our Lord and acknowledging that He is God and we are not, is an ongoing occurrence.

Because our world around us preaches we can be our own god and choose our own destiny, we need to remind ourselves every day that we must willingly hand our will over to Him.

But what does this practically look like?

It begins in our hearts as we decide to step off the throne that reigns upon it and make room for Christ to rule instead.

When we make choices in how we behave, interact with others and how we live our lives we let the Holy Spirit have reign.

We yield to the sanctification process, knowing we need to be changed and we find growth and maturity in Him.

We develop a genuine relationship with the Lord, making effort to pursue Him as He pursues us.

We let the word of God wash over our minds, renewing how we think and see Him and others.

And we recognize our need for Him as we live our lives each day.

We don’t decide those plans God has for us, we accept willingly what He knows best and trust Him to guide us each step of the way.

Some that are seeking radical empowerment for themselves, having felt helpless one way or another in their lives, will come to the conclusion that making themselves their own god will only disappoint.

There’s only one true God – and, thankfully, we are not Him.

How God chooses to answer our cries for help is His choice.

If we believe Him when He says His ways are higher and His thoughts are above our own, yet we are disappointed when He responds to us in a way we were not at all expecting (maybe even in a way we do not like), then we have allowed our trust in His ways to be challenged.

We have to accept in our hearts that He knows what is best for us when He moves and acts in a way that we either do not understand or do not like.

The Lord is moving in a lot of ways in each of our lives and if we listen and pay attention to His voice, we will learn that He is responding to something we have prayed for (maybe even for years!).

Do not miss when He answers today a request and petition you placed before Him yesterday. Receive what He is doing.