Day Two Of 8th Annual End Of Summer Fast & Detox: The Soil
Do You Like The Direction Your Current Thoughts Are Taking You?
We are officially two days in. You know we have to check in, how do you feel? I know for me, the first day is always the hardest day, around the second/third day, my cravings begin to go away. If your cravings are still heavy, just think about your why, and it’ll help. Today was harder than normal for me. Typically I go to the movies every Tuesday, so not being able to go was a struggle. I wrestled with whether the movies was TV or not, in the end I decided if I had to ask then I probably shouldn’t. I spent the time that I would be in the movies reading my Bible and journaling. I had to pray, because I was upset that I couldn’t do what I wanted to do. As I was praying, gratitude filled my heart, and the feeling of missing out, went away. I shared that so that you know you’re not alone. I know some people act perfect, but I’ll be honest and say that the feeling of wanting to watch TV, or scroll on social is real. It’s not like I’m doing this fast and I don’t want to do the things that I gave up, because I do. I find my strength and joy and knowing that I’m doing something that is pleasing God. In the moments that it gets hard, that’s when I pressed in to him, because I can’t do it on my own.
Lord, thank you. Thank you for meeting us where we are. Thank you for your grace and mercy. Thank you for never leaving us. Lord, heal our minds. Help us to never exchange your truth for lies. Search our minds and remove any lie that enemy has tried to plant. As we read your word, reveal any wrong thinking in us. Thank you God for giving us the same mind that is in Christ. We know your thoughts are higher than our thoughts, help us to cast down any thoughts that contradicts yours. Thank you for sound mind. Thank you for renewing our minds. Holy Spirit, have your way in our minds. Empty us of ourselves, and fill us with your presence. God we’re sorry that we allowed the lies of the enemies to penetrate in our mind. Help us to combat his lies with your truth. Father give us the mental capacity to fight anything that tries to come into our minds that is not from you.
In Jesus name, I pray, Amen!
Yesterday, we dug into the root, which is your heart. I hope you spent some time with yourself and explored your heart. Today, let’s explore the soil, which is your mind. It’s time for us to renew our minds, and take our thoughts captive. Please don’t think that exploring your heart and mind is something you should only do for this fast, you need to ask God to search your heart and renew your mind, every morning. When God first told me to discuss the power of the mind, I didn’t want to, because it’s something we touch on every year. I wanted something different this year, but God revealed that we can’t fast without digging into the heart and mind. They’re the nucleus of everything in our lives. We can’t talk about changing your life, without changing your mind. You can change every part of your life, but without changing your mind, it won’t stick. TD Jakes once said, “If you don’t change your mind, the same experiences will perpetuate itself over and over again. You can’t change outwardly, if you don’t change inwardly. It’s your default settings.” You ever find yourself in similar circumstances over and over? You ever find yourself dating the same person with a different name over and over? You ever find yourself at a place with your finances over and over? You ever find yourself in a cycle you can’t seem to shake? This is all because of your mind! Your mind is holding you captive.
Your mind is a very tricky thing. If you don’t ask God to renew your mind, you will become a victim to your thoughts. Your mind produces thoughts, which directly influence your perspective. Your perspective is everything, it’s what you believe to be true. You ever heard the saying, “Expect the worst, so you’ll never be disappointed?” This is a very detrimental way of thinking because, all the miracles we read come from people with expectant hearts. In Luke, both Jairus and Simeon waited for Jesus expecting a miracle, in two different stories. That’s just one book. The woman who reached for the hem of Jesus garment, had an expectant heart for Him to heal her. I expect God to show up in my life, because it’s who He is. I wake up in the morning, expecting to have a good day. Expecting things opens the doors for God to do good things in your life. I know the world says to expect the worse, but I serve a God who wants me to expect the best. Romans 12:12 says, “Rejoice in our confident hope. Be patient in trouble, and keep on praying.” It’s so easy to get caught up in the ways of this world, but I challenge you to change your mind and to refresh your hope. This is how you grow your faith, you have to expect things to work together for your good, so He can get the glory.
Romans 12:2 says, “Don’t copy the behavior and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think. Then you will learn to know God’s will for you, which is good and pleasing and perfect.” Everybody gets hung up on the first part of this scripture, which talks about being in this world, but not of this world by the renewing of your mind. BUT, I don’t hear a lot about the second part. It tells you exactly why the renewing of the mind is crucial. Without asking God to renew your mind, you won’t be able to discern a just good thing from a God thing. When your discernment is off, it obscures how you live and operate with others. Satan loves when your discernment is off. When your mind isn’t right, he’s able to plant thoughts. He did it with Eve in the garden, Job, and even Jesus in the wilderness. The devil is the father of lies. You can know something for sure, but the fears and anxieties from our minds or even outside influences can alter what you believe. What I mean is, the truth you stand on can vary. Our lives follow the direction of our thoughts. Solomon says, “For as he thinketh in his heart, so is he:,” in Proverbs 23:7. If you want this next season to be different, you have to change your mind.
So many times when we want to be better, we focus on the behavior we want to change, rather than the getting to the root of what causes the behavior. Let’s say you want to start exercising daily, or eating healthier, you’re focusing on the behavior. When we do that, we ignore the real problem of the lie we believe and the mental rut we fall into. For example, the lie we may believe is that, “I always fall off with working out, I’m a inconsistent person.” That leads to us only attacking the symptoms and not the source. You can not change a habit simply by removing it. You will always drop the ball and fall back into it. That’s why I had us come up with reasons as to why we’re completing this fast yesterday. It’s time to rewire our brains. The words you speak and thoughts you think shape your world. You can’t believe this is true for positive things and not true for negative things. Dr. Anita Phillips wrote the book, The Garden Within, where she said, “You can’t change a behavior, because the behavior is the fruit. Once a tree delivers its first harvest it’ll produce the same fruit over and over again, if conditions remain the same.” It’s time to change the conditions. You can’t walk on water if you don’t have enough faith to step off the boat.
For todays activity, I’m going to give you some practical ways to change your mind. First, take some time to meditate on Gods faithfulness. Grab your journal and write three ways God has shown up for you this season, no matter how big or small. I like to mark His goodness with my camera. I take a lot of pictures, and when God does something that I found myself stressed about, I add it to my note titled, “His Goodness.” It’s a note on my phone with screenshots of photos where God showed up. One example is a picture when I moved into my apartment. Now, you might not understand, but I had been talking about moving for years and even looking at apartments prior with all of $50 in my account. Fast forward to November 2nd, last year, I moved in and it was nothing, but God, (this is a story for another day.) I challenge you to start marking when He shows up. It’s a good reference for when anxiety and lies start to creep up, you can go see visuals of how he showed up before. If he did it before, he can certainly do it again. I didn’t mean to go on a tangent, but I had to get it out. Next, start to challenge your thoughts in the moment. When you feel a negative thought creeping up, ask yourself is this even true? Write down three negative characteristics you believe about yourself. Next to each one, combat it with Gods truth. Who does God say that you are? These are your biblical affirmations, say them over and over. Add them into your morning routine. Feel free to write more than three.
Now for those of you who are detoxing as well, I hope you understand the mind is extremely important. Psychology Today said, “When positive thoughts are generated, when you’re feeling happy, or optimistic, cortisol decreases and the brain produces serotonin, creating a feeling of well-being. When serotonin levels are normal, one feels happy, calmer, less anxious, more focused and more emotionally stable (Scaccia, 2017). Dopamine is also a neurotransmitter that helps control the brain’s reward system and pleasure center. The brain draws precious metabolic energy away from the prefrontal cortex. With these negative thoughts, the brain can’t perform at high or even normal capacity. When stressed or scared, it’s difficult to take in and process new material, yet alone think creatively. “Stress can alter plasticity in the nervous system, particularly in the limbic system”
Have you ever thought yourself out of something? I know I have. Our minds have the ability to create our own anxieties, over what if’s that may never even happen. We will even go as far as preparing for the what if situation that our mind created. Today, I want you to write down ten affirmations. According to Mindtools, "Affirmations are positive statements that can help you to challenge and overcome self-sabotaging and negative thoughts.'' Not only do I want you to write it down, I want you to speak them out loud twice or more a day. Make sure you write your positive affirmations in present tense and first person. Write them as if they have already been achieved. By doing it this way, you are training yourself to believe in them, by making them real and achievable. This is a great activity help you be more positive and overall happier. You need to let go of any and all negative thoughts and images and bombard your subconscious mind with new thoughts and images that are positive.
Two days down, five more to go. You’ve got this!
