Your perspective on the world around you can lift you up or it can tear you down.
How you see the people, places, activities that are in your daily life will impact your hearts posture.
Not everything will be great all the time, but your heart posture can be strong all the time.
Your heart posture can be strong in joy or strong in depression.
And it doesn't depend on the outer circumstances....
We all know this, yet from time to time, we all allow things into our lives that tear our joy! And it's becoming aware of this that opens the door way to being confident in joy.
Not 'positive thinking' but a God-confidence where your hopes in Him is the driving force in your attitude.
Even in the most testing seasons, it's where your looking that is magnified into your outward reaction. So I'm choosing to look to the Lord. In the day we're in, it's often not our first thought to look to Him in prayer, praise, thanksgiving and worship.... but it SHOULD be.
Where else would we get the strength to overcome the battles with a smile on our face? I don't know about you, but I'm not strong enough to get through what I'm facing on my own accord!
I NEED Jesus.
And it's Jesus that I focus on day in and day out that magnifies into the overflow of my life being able to be drenched in Faith and Hope, Love and Joy, Peace and Patience, Self-control and Understanding... focusing on Jesus allows those fruits to be the magnified product of my life.
I'm still learning and I often slip up on things.... but I've discovered the wonderful gift of being able to live out of an abundance with Jesus, an abundance that materialises to nothing in the physical, but everything in my heart, soul and mind.
Here's an example...
I have a very special glass waterbottle that I was carrying around the other day. It was late in the day, I was tired and homesick. I needed to open a door and at the time was also holding a cup of tea in my one hand and a book in the other, so I put my water bottle under my arm to free up space. As I pulled on the handle, my arm slipped and I dropped my botttle and it broke.
Ordinarily, this would've been that 'one more thing' that made me break into tears and let all the other struggles culminate into a pity party mess. But I stood back and let out a breath and found myself singing through a whisper, 'Jesus, Jesus, You make the darkness tremble.'
And I cleaned up the mess, found a plastic bottle to get me through the day and moved forward.
Now it may seem like a petty, pointless example, but for me it's in those little things where I have to keep my eyes above the mess (literally!) so that the mess isn't magnified into anything bigger than it needs to be. And when I focus on the God above it all and not the mess on the floor, I am able to 'let it go and lean into God.'
Sometimes we hold onto things that just cripple us and lead us down bitter and pitiful paths and it just wrecks our happiness. But there are so many times when we truly have the choice to lift our heads and move forward into grace.
I recently posted a new dance video on Youtube to Leanna Crawford's "How Could You Not." I posted it very shortly after recording because I had such a passionate desire for the words of her song to be shared.
Listen to this...
"I see the sun rise in the morning
And a million stars at night
I hear the birds they can't stop singing
Hallelujah
I see his goodness
When I fall down
And his grace that picks me up
Every day I can't stop singing
Hallelujah
How can you not see God
In every little thing
In every little moment
How can you not feel loved
How can you not
How can you not
Cause He's in the middle of
Every little thing
And every little moment
How can you not see God
How can you not
How can you not."
So next time you're hit with a moment of overwhelm, anxiety or sorrow.... whatever it may be.... lift your eyes to Jesus. Look at the wonderful creation around you, look at the birds of the air, and let Him magnify in your thoughts.
Here are a couple verses that you can use in meditation as you actively remember that Jesus is above it all. Read this over and over until your heart tells your head who's in charge!
(Psalm 96vs11~12 CEB)
"Let heaven celebrate! Let the earth rejoice!
Let the sea and everything in it roar!
Let the countryside and everything in it celebrate!
Then all the trees of the forest too
will shout out joyfully."(Revelation 4vs11 ESV)
“Worthy are you, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honor and power, for you created all things, and by your will they existed and were created.”(Psalm 66vs4 ESV)
"All the earth worships you and sings praises to you; they sing praises to your name.”(John 1vs3 ESV)
"All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made."(Colossians 1vs16 ESV)
"For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him."~ X ~
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