Guard your thoughts, control your thinking and you'll change your life

You can guard your thoughts.

In fact, you absolutely must take control of what you tell yourself if you want to live a happy, thriving life.

Many people--especially singles--have the mistaken notion that their thoughts have a life of their own, that their thoughts are so strong that they (your thoughts) dictate what goes on inside your head, instead of you. No, that's not true. You can guard your thoughts if you're determined to do so.

The truth that you are in control of your self-talk is one of the most important life-lessons you can learn. But sometimes we use the excuse that Satan controls our thoughts and we're just too weak to resist him. Nonsense!

...greater is he who is in you than he who is in the world.(1 John 4:4)

You've heard that verse many times, but are you putting it into practice? The Holy Spirit, who lives within you, is greater than the one who is in the world--namely Satan. That's not wishful thinking; that's a fact!

But let's not give the Enemy too much credit. More often than not, we beat ourselves up.

If you don't guard your thoughts, you can tell yourself a lot of garbage that simply isn't true. You can overreact to slights and let your thoughts race about how evil another person was to you. You can rationalize wrong behavior, obsess over events that happened many years ago, and generally create your own private mini-hell.

Don't do it!

"Fine," you say, "but I can't help myself. Exactly how am I supposed to grab control of my negative thinking when it's been controlling me all my life?"

Here are a few tips:

• Understand that just because you tell yourself something, that doesn't make it true. This is essential when it comes to your self image. No matter how long you've been telling yourself that you're ugly or unattractive or dumb, that doesn't make it so. Most of your misbeliefs are about yourself and how you think others see you.

• Wrong thinking is like a snowball rolling down a hill. It tends to gain momentum. That's why you need to stop it immediately, before it becomes a juggernaut that overwhelms you.

• You do have the power to change what you tell yourself. Your mind is not like a stuck record that gets caught in one groove and has to keep repeating itself over and over again. Your mind is like a tape recorder that can erase abusive messages from the past and record new, positive messages over them.

• It's not enough to just stop telling yourself bad things. Nature, including your mind, hates a vacuum. It has to fill it with something. That means you have to fill the void that's left after you toss your bad thoughts out. So ask God to reveal the truth to you. Then replace those bad thoughts with that truth.

• As you learn to recognize lies and self-destructive thinking, you'll find it easier and easier to guard your thoughts. This is an activity that takes practice, but you can do it. Believing that you can't guard your thoughts is another lie, a favorite trick of the Enemy.

You deserve God's best for your life, but you have to believe that truth before it can happen. Don't stunt your growth by panicky, abusive thinking. Guard your thoughts. Stop the lies before they can get started. Rip those old lies out and replace them with the truth.

When you take this step, you'll be astounded how your life and your relationships with others will start to change for the good.

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