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“Make a tree good and its fruit will be good, or make a tree bad and its fruit will be bad, for a tree is recognized by its fruit.”  Matthew 12:33

In this trying hour, where many are confused and disoriented by what we see in our nation and world, there is still a godly wisdom we can gain and use to help us discern the voices around us.

Who is telling the truth, who is deceiving their audiences and who is only telling half-truths, which is also a great deception?

I used to listen to a preacher for a season and attended a two week training he hosted. But something strange was happening at this event.

The other attendees around me began feeling confused and hurt. We all felt an onslaught of spiritual attacks during our stay at this event.

Soon some of the attendees began turning on one another in the midst of the confusion, and competing for approval from this leader was strong.

I left this training having met the Lord there by His mercy, but with an awful aftertaste of the experiences I had with some of the others and this leader. It was baffling to me and I continued to pray for clarity and discernment.

I prayed for several years after this event, asking the Lord for help and insight as to what had occurred spiritually during that event. He kept telling me to look at the fruit that was produced from it and from this specific leader.

So I watched carefully with a heart to recognize what type of fruit was being produced.

It began with the leadership directly under this particular leader. Several soon left his ministry and one even publicly repented without specifics of what happened and when, but I and a few others knew what he was referencing. Another leader that had walked away shared publicly her pain from what appeared to be betrayal of leadership she had to leave behind.

And then the confusion of those that attended this event alongside of me never fully lifted for us until a couple of years later. Some of us were able to help one another bring understanding, others we never heard from again.

The fruit was clearly bad and the fruit did not lie. It produced strife within that ministry, wounds to those that trusted this ministry, and even pushed others to walk away from their faith. It was terribly sad to see the aftermath and the product of a leader that was not to be trusted.

I continued to ask the Lord why He led me to this event. I was certain without any doubt that He wanted me to be there. And as I processed what had happened, the Lord revealed to me that the multiple lessons I had personally gained was His intent. He wanted me to learn how to recognize who to trust by looking at the fruit they produced.

He also revealed to me other reasons He had me there, but I want to focus on the valuable lesson of discerning fruit.

Jesus taught us in the New Testament that there would be wolves amongst us walking around in sheep’s clothing. That should make us aware that there are those that are bad who will not be easily detected. They know how to blend in, they know how to appear as one of us, but they are not of us.

“Watch out for false prophets. They come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ferocious wolves.”  Matthew 7:15

For these it will be by their actions and not necessarily their words that will tell on them. 

Whenever we find ourselves confused about a certain individual we can always go back on these basic truths from our Lord. Let us look at the fruit they produce and ask the Spirit of God to confirm what kind of fruit it is. And let us be wise in who we allow ourselves to trust to listen to.

Listening to a wounded heart well can be learned.An individual that is trying to open up to you about a hurt they received is important for you to take notice. 

They are choosing to trust you with their pain. They regard you as a trustworthy individual that they can turn to for help.

A lot of us are intimidated to be that individual that a hurting person turns to for help, and that is because we do not understand what they really need and we feel inadequate to know how to help them.

More often than not, these hurting individuals want to be heard. They want their pain to be validated and they want someone to share in their grief with them.

Romans 12:15 tells us we are to mourn with those who mourn and rejoice with those who rejoice.

However, if we do not know how to mourn with those that are mourning, then we are unable to step into this truth.

I strongly believe that a huge part of mourning with those who are mourning or are grieving, is learning to listen to them and to sit with them.

There is not a lot for us to do when we sit with a wounded heart. The fixing of their heart is not our responsibility, that is the burden of the Lord.

When listening to this individual, listen intently and with compassion and empathy. 

Do not allow yourself to be distracted as they are speaking with you. And do not hurry them as they share with you.

If time is not on your side, set a specific time with them where you are able to give them your full attention and time. And share that with them. This will show them that you truly care about them and what they have to share with you.

Listening does not involve offering up your opinion or a solution. 

It does involve caring and loving this person and finding a love for them that comes from the Lord.

I try and remind myself when I have the opportunity to listen to someone else’s story, how others have listened to me and shown me great love. 

If culturally appropriate, make eye contact while they are sharing with you. And repeat to them what you have heard from them, in order to make sure you are hearing them correctly. 

And if you are asked for your opinion or advice, this is your invitation to provide that, yet do not be pressured to have an answer for them. It is okay not to know an answer. 

Always offer to pray with this individual, bringing them before the Lord and their pain as well and asking God to heal them. 

Prayer is building a relationship with our God with no strict rules we need to follow.

Our prayer times we set aside for a habitual practice to seek after the Lord, should be seen as a springboard into the rest of our day with Him. Praying in the morning puts our eyes and hearts on God.

We then go throughout our busy day, and because we have already begun a conversation with God, the pulling from the Spirit to gather our attention again is more apt to happen.

Our hearts are more sensitive to His voice and we can discern easier when He is speaking to us after already having spent time with Him in the early hours of the day.

Building a habit of prayer in our lives takes an effort to be intentional to do so.

What is not so wise, however, is when believers give up on speaking with God if they have missed out on their morning devotionals and prayer time. They feel they have missed the mark for the day and approaching Him would be pointless.

Let me encourage you to not fall into this “works based” trap. If you wake up late in the morning, or for several mornings, just choose to find another time in your day to meet with Him. God is not upset or disappointed in you.

We might be upset with ourselves, but He is not.

True, it is beneficial to start your day speaking with the Lord, but it is not a set rule in stone. Come to Him when you can and as often as you have time for. As your relationship with the Lord grows, so will your discipline of spending that time with Him.

How does being creative help improve the health of your mind?

Being creative brings us emotional joy and happiness. Working on your garden, dancing a jig, writing a story, or putting together a piece of artwork are all creative activities that bring us positive emotions.

When we find ourselves in our creative zone, a space that some psychologists call “the flow”, this pulls us from multitasking and having our attention divided, to a moment of full focus on our work in front of us. 

We forget our worries, our fears, our sadness.

We feel hope and inspiration rising within us while in our creative flow, as our actual brain waves slow down and the critical part of our brain, our prefrontal cortex, has been quieted.

Without all the distractions of life bombarding us, we are able to think more clearly and creatively. And good chemicals are released in abundance in our brains!

Using your creativity will help in de-stressing, lessen anxiety and depression symptoms and improve your immune system. 

God made us creative beings. 

His creativity is always on display in His creation around us and with us. We are His creation. 

And it is no wonder that when we put our own hands to the activity of creating, that it brings us peace, healing and happiness. 

I believe it is God’s intent to use the act of creating in our lives to quiet us, in order for us to hear Him. 

When we remove stress and distractions and noise, there is a space we find ourselves in, this creative flow, that gives room for us to hear our Creator. 

Next time you choose to be creative, use it as a time for you and the Lord to create together!

Why are you procrastinating?

When I came across this question in my latest research on procrastination, I paused for a moment, realizing I had never thought to ask myself of why I was procrastinating with something.

I always summed up procrastination to being just a bad habit. And I still agree that it is a bad habit that needs to be broken and worked on, but getting to the root of why we are procrastinating in the first place intrigued me.

I thought over the possible reasons why I personally procrastinate. And I came up with reasons I had no idea were holding me back.

Reasons we procrastinate can include the following:  having abstract goals, the reward is far off in the future, feeling overwhelmed, anxiety, depression, fear of failure.. and this list definitely can go on and on.

Why we procrastinate can be answered as we look at each individual situation where we are procrastinating, and choose to dive into what is keeping us from accomplishing that goal, project, or activity.

The reason we procrastinate with doing the dishes, for example, versus the reason we are not getting our workout in could be different.

If we put out there in general why we procrastinate, then we could be avoiding the harder issues we are not facing. 

You not doing the dishes has nothing in common with your fear of failure with a work project. This avoidance of a chore could easily fall into a habit you created with procrastination, while the work project is another deeper issue altogether.

As you go throughout your week, I encourage you to ask yourself why you are procrastinating with each task you find yourself delaying to do. 

Process your answers and allow yourself time to figure out what is truly holding you back. 

Once you discover the problem or problems, then you can create a plan to work on them and move forward. 

Not taking things so personally can be done when we learn to be secure in who we are. 

When we realize our own value and worth, we will not allow others to degrade us. Sure, they might treat us bad, but we can choose to not allow their ill treatment of us to impact what we know about who we truly are.

I listened to a talk on YouTube a couple of weeks back and an illustration was made that has stuck well with me.

The speaker took out a bill. I do not recall how much the bill was, but it was a nice amount. Then he asked the audience if they would like to have the bill. They of course responded as we would expect them to with a resounding yes.

Then he did something that I would not advise anyone to do for sanitary reasons.

He crumpled up the bill and put it in his mouth. Next, he spat it out onto the stage where he was speaking from.

He then picked it up and asked the audience the same question. 

And the audience still agreed with the speaker that the bill had value. The same value it was worth prior to him treating it as he did.

He then made his point that we are like that bill. We also get treated bad much like the bill that was wadded up, chewed on and spat out.

However, even though we sometimes take the ill treatment from others as a sure sign that we must be a sort of person that deserves that treatment, the speaker reminded the audience that we are still highly valuable. 

The brain will get us to believe the lie that how we are treated defines who we are.

We need to correct this thinking. We need to know who we are, our value and our importance. We need to stop allowing how others treat us to define us. 

We need to recognize that just like a bill that was trashed and stepped on and still retains its’ value, we, too, retain ours. 

The next time someone mistreats you for any reason, remember that they do not have the privilege to shape your identity and sense of worth. 

The individual doing the mistreatment often times has the problem, not us. They need to change, we do not.

We have a responsibility to respond in a righteous way, however. We must forgive and show grace and mercy to those that do us harm. This if for our own good and keeps us free from bitterness and unforgiveness. 

I have learned an interesting thing in my approach to reaching the difficult goals I set out for myself in life. The goals that seem more challenging to attain often times, at some point, become discouraging for me to follow through with.

Why is that?

I have talked a lot about working on our understanding of our own worth and value, and this is the year that the Lord challenged me to work on my own personal understanding of this and fully embracing it.

The Lord revealed to me that it was my lack of embracing my own value that was holding me back from reaching and pursuing those goals that were a lot harder for me to put my focus on.

Reaching the vision I had in mind with my fitness goals for example, honestly, was not being attained because of my mindset. Somewhere in my subconscious I had believed a lie that being as fit as I would like was not for me at this age. (not sharing that with you here 😉 )

This particular mindset definitely reflected my struggle with my awareness of my self worth.  

Before I would be able to reach my goal, I knew I needed to work on changing my mindset by rewriting the lie I was believing about myself and turning it into a truth. 

Whether I truly believed this new truth about myself or not in the beginning was not the point.

Taking that new truth statement and choosing to believe it for myself was my next step of action. An action that I worked on as often as I was thinking about my fitness goals. 

I told myself this truth statement for months, caught the lie that kept trying to creep back into my thought cycle and fought against it. 

I was not always exercising like I should, or eating healthy in the beginning of working on changing this mindset, however, I continued to tell myself I was worth reaching the fitness goals I had set out for myself at the beginning of the year. 

Then a shift happened. 

I began to do more research on how to become healthier, how to lose those last stubborn pounds, how to break through weightless plateaus.. and soon I was ready to put into action the new truth statement my mind had finally accepted. 

When I started to see results, I was motivated to keep up my pursuit of my fitness goals. 

And then this month I accomplished what I had set out to do at the New Year.. I became stronger physically, I have the energy that I wanted, and my belief that I was worth reaching this new fit lifestyle led me to my own personal victory.

I reflected back on when the Lord told me it was a shift that needed to take place in my thinking, and I thanked Him for helping me and leading me to success. 

God cares about our physical health. He cares that we have the energy we need to do what He leads us to do in this life. He cares if we feel good about ourselves or not.

God wants us to see our value in Him.

Is your lack of understanding your value and worth and importance holding you back from something you have always wanted to pursue or be? 

I encourage you to work on seeing your value and His love for you as you pursue your goals and visions. Do not let your own mindset be what is holding you back. 

Become your own cheerleader rather than your greatest enemy.

Can the brain abandon old habits?

Yes, it most definitely can.

I have personally found, though, that it is easier to create a new habit rather than working on breaking a bad habit.

For example, I tried for years to quit drinking soda, a horrible habit I had that I wanted to end. I set up my own personal rules with when I was allowed to have a soda and when I was not. I tried limiting myself to so many soda’s in the week. I tried stopping cold turkey. All of this to no avail.

When I tried to keep away from a bad habit, my thoughts were still focused on it. And just that alone was only reinforcing the habit in my brain.

Then I heard from somewhere that the trick was focusing my brain on a new habit rather than working on abandoning a bad one.

I put this wisdom to the test and trained my mind to focus on developing a new habit instead, and my experience proved successful.

In order to break my soda habit, I told myself regularly that I was developing a new habit of drinking unsweet iced tea (which I really do enjoy drinking). I then told myself during the same times I would normally think about drinking a soda, that I would love to have an iced tea.

I would not allow my brain to move towards having thoughts of drinking a soda or even thoughts of not drinking a soda. If I did allow even my mind to dwell on the lack of soda drinking, then again I would find myself really craving one.

I then brought this new thought into other times and events that I would normally crave a soda. The hardest places of course were at restaurants eating my favorite foods. Before even walking into the eating establishment, however, I would put my mind onto the unsweet iced tea that I would soon be enjoying.

It worked!

I had trained my mind to crave a much healthier beverage at these different times and places and it became easier to keep to my new habit each time. I was intentionally choosing to reinforce the new habit rather than avoiding a bad habit.

I also have a habit tracker system on my phone. This gives me the reward of accomplishment as I learn a new habit. I will talk more about this system in my next Helpful Tip I share on social media!

“For just as through the disobedience of the one man the many were made sinners, so also through the obedience of the one man the many will be made righteous.”  Romans 5:19 NIV

As believers in Christ we have something amazing; we have a new identity!

This comes in handy when battling shame. 

Because to overcome shame, which is an encompassing of the entire self (or simply put: incorrectly identifying ourselves and who we are with what bad event happened to us, or what we have done we are ashamed of), we need to have faith that in Christ we get an opportunity to see ourselves in a new light.

Jesus came to the earth to bring salvation and new life. 

“.. I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.”  John 10:10b NASB

He came to take on our sin, our pain, and our shame.

However, He does not stop there. He then gifts us with new life, redemption, and a new identity in Him. 

We are meant to embrace this new identity and to allow it to transform how we see ourselves. 

“Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come:  The old has gone, the new is here!”  2 Corinthians 5:17 NIV

If you struggle with shame and shamed based thoughts, then you can overcome through learning who you are in Him. This takes work by studying the Bible, meditating on verses that instruct us how to think in regards to our new identity, and a determination to believe by faith what the Lord has already done in our hearts.

A lot of Christians fail at understanding that, although their actions and words today may not reflect who they really are as a new creation, they still need to work towards stepping into that new identity by allowing their mind to be renewed through the Holy Spirit and God’s Word.

This renewing process of the mind is a huge part of the sanctification process:  being set apart as holy unto the Lord.

We must on a daily basis live out of our new identity, rather than live out of how we feel or our shame. 

We live as though we are already made new and made righteous, because we are. A lot of the times we live out of are old nature and forget our true identity. It takes a striving in Him with His strength to live up to who we have already become in Christ. 

This is much like a civilian becoming royalty. It takes time for them to learn how to live out their new role and identity. It does not happen overnight, there is a work to be done in the mind to learn what royalty thinks and behaves like.

You have been adopted into God’s family through His Son, and now you are learning how to live as an adopted son/daughter. Let God renew your mind so much that your brain and heart recognize and live up to the new identity that Jesus has given us. 

And let go of your shame.

One habit that I returned to my scheduling routine is adding in time estimation of each task I need to do.

I was having difficulty getting in all of my work and household chores within the hours that I allotted myself to work. 

Although I planned out my day in advance the evening beforehand, I was still running short on time in trying to accomplish every bit of it. I found myself often pushing tasks into the next day.

I was starting to get frustrated. 

In my frustration and through a convenient conversation I had with my husband, I remembered a neat trick that I used to do years ago, but had forgotten all about.

My memory came back to me mid conversation with my husband who was discussing his satisfaction of having estimated correctly beforehand the work hours on a few landscaping projects. 

If he estimates incorrectly, then he would have no choice but to work over the time he was being paid for. This resulted in the client getting free work hours from him because of his incorrect projection of how long a job would take him.

For example, if he projected a job would take 3 hours and it really took him 4 hours, then he would lose an hour of paid time.

I thought through his example he unintentionally laid before me and realized that I was NOT even estimating how long something would take me when I planned out my day.

I took to my to do list with the time estimation in mind and projected how long each individual task it would take for me to get through. I even included time of exercising and getting ready for the day.

I then tallied up the time and marked how many hours it would take me to get everything on my list accomplished. 

This helped me with refraining from putting too many big tasks down for one day, which I am prone to do. 

It helped me visually see my day better, and gave me a more realistic frame of mind of how long it actually takes me to do tasks that for some reason I thought I only needed five minutes for. (Not true, most tasks take me longer because of my issue with perfectionism and my random inclusion of another task that was like the first task. In other words, I easily distract myself with things I should not be doing! Who can relate?)

This mapping out my day through estimating how long each task will take me also helped me not become overwhelmed and anxious about getting things done. It gave me a sense of control over my day and I was able to trust my own to do list.

Now, some tasks, such as new ones not done before, are harder to make time estimations on. That is definitely okay, because we can give ourselves elbow room as we plan our day around that new task. And if we finish early, then we can take a well needed break.

My husband always reminds me to plan flexibility in my day a well. That will have to be for another blog article. 🙂

Try this out for yourself! See if this helps you plan your time more wisely and not become too wrapped up in your lengthy to do lists.