Counselor's Corner: Focus on What You Are Doing Right

Are the thoughts about yourself centered on what you are doing right more or on what you are doing wrong more? Do you tend to focus on your failures instead of any progress that you have made?

→Choose to magnify your progress not failures. Choose to magnify your strengths not your weaknesses.

Focus can be defined as what you concentrate on the most or the center of your attention.

We all have faults, weaknesses, and have made mistakes. The problem is when the enemy places a magnifying glass over each one of your weaknesses, and your focus becomes distorted and all you can see are the negative aspects about yourself.

Focusing on your deficits can cause discouragement, defeat, and depression.

Focusing too long on what is wrong with you can cause you to shrink back and not go forward, and this is exactly where the enemy wants you-stuck in the past and living in defeat of your past mistakes.

If God has forgiven your sins, He does not keep reminding you of your failures.

The enemy will attempt to get you to focus on all that is wrong with yourself. There are some key things to watch for and to recognize when the enemy has your focus distorted on the negative areas in your life.

1.      Your focus will turn to your circumstances more than to Jesus, and your circumstances will appear larger than they really are. When your focus shifts to all the distractions, chaos, and upheaval around you it is easy to feel anxious, uneasy, irritable, worried, and fearful.

2.      Confusion instead of clarity. You can doubt yourself, your strengths and your abilities because the enemy has you focused on what you have done wrong.

3.      Past hurts and insecurities are magnified. What you thought you dealt with in the past gets rehashed. This rehashing is an attempt to weaken you and to cause you to doubt what God is doing in your life. The past is used to hinder you as you attempt to move forward and enter a new season in your life. The enemy will try and derail progress and growth.

This week CHOOSE to focus on your strengths, your victories, and your good qualities. Write out what God shows you about yourself and CHOOSE to believe Him. CHOOSE to completely forgive yourself of any past mistakes and CHOOSE to love and nurture yourself. Be good to yourself. Don’t let the enemy erect lies in your mind about yourself, he is the accuser of the brethren.

Word of Encouragement Devotional: When You Feel Pressure

→Pressure means to squeeze out or to apply a weight on something.

There is good pressure and there is bad pressure. Good pressure causes you to move, change, or to grow for the better, such as the pressure you feel when you are in college. Bad pressure usually comes straight from the kingdom of darkness, and causes you to feel like you are going to snap, such as when you are dealing with the burdens of others because they don’t carry their own weight.

→Pressure that comes from the enemy will wear you down until you break or give into sin.

Signs that the pressure you are experiencing is from the enemy:

1)      You are not sleeping well, and perhaps having nightmares.

2)      You do not feel at peace, maybe restless even.

3)      Headaches that are unusual and/or fatigue, or feeling unwell.

4)      You have “brain fog” and cannot concentrate or stay focused.

5)      Feeling “off” but can’t put your finger on why.

·         If most of the above symptoms occur with added outside annoyances, distractions, and concerning situations that arise then you can rest assured you are experiencing pressure from the enemy to lose your peace, your joy, and eventually snap.

→Reflect:

If you have had one of those days or weeks where you have endured most the above signs and you do lose your cool, don’t condemn yourself but step back and be still with God. Don’t beat yourself up, be aware of the pressure that has tried to get you to break. Forgive yourself and if you did sin ask God to forgive you and He will.

When you feel the kind of pressure that causes you to be on edge, stressed, not able to focus, irritable, annoyed, and frustrated go to the Lord immediately and ask for His protection and deliverance from the pressure tactics the enemy is using to wear you down. The enemy can also use people to cause you to feel pressure as the enemy hopes you will wear down and give into what the enemy wants. This kind of pressure never comes from God. When God leads you to something He will do so gently, you will have peace, and you will not be annoyed or irritated.

→Meditate:

Out of my distress I called on the Lord; the Lord answered me and set me free. The Lord is on my side; I will not fear. What can man do to me? Psalm 118:5-6, ESV

Review: Final 42

Final 42 by Christy Decker
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Grab your tissue! This book will draw you in from the first chapter!

This novel resonates deep within me, as my father was a police office for 38 years. Each character in Final 42 is so well-developed that you ride the emotions of what it is like to not only be a police officer, but what it is like to be a family member of a police officer. Author Christy Decker writes with such raw and gritty emotion that you feel the pull and tug of what it is like to experience Bravo 400’s day-to-day lives as police officers. What sacrifices police officers make every day, and some do face the ultimate sacrifice of losing their lives.

View all my reviews

Review: Final 42

Final 42 by Christy Decker
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Grab your tissue! This book will draw you in from the first chapter!

This novel resonates deep within me, as my father was a police office for 38 years. Each character in Final 42 is so well-developed that you ride the emotions of what it is like to not only be a police officer, but what it is like to be a family member of a police officer. Author Christy Decker writes with such raw and gritty emotion that you feel the pull and tug of what it is like to experience Bravo 400’s day-to-day lives as police officers. What sacrifices police officers make every day, and some do face the ultimate sacrifice of losing their lives.


View all my reviews

Counselor's Corner: Having Enough Determination to Succeed and Overcome in Life

Do you know what kind of determination it takes to succeed and be an overcomer in life?

►First, let’s define what determination is: the act of deciding definitely and firmly; firm or fixed intention to achieve a desired end.

►Second, what does it mean to be an overcomer? One who succeeds in dealing with or gaining control of some problem or difficulty.

To have the kind of determination to succeed in life and be an overcomer one must decide to firmly fix their attention on their desired goals in life, and rise above challenges that may hinder complete victory.

Having determination means:

·         Staying focused on your goals

·         Delaying gratification like rewarding yourself after not before you achieve a desired outcome

·         Facing fears and overcoming them

·         Learning from mistakes made in the past and not repeating them

·         Are able to ignore the things you have no control over

·         Never whining or complaining about problems

·         Eliminate negative thinking

·         Continuing to move forward in spite of opposition and challenges

·         Not making excuses and blaming others for your situation

Having determination will help you succeed in life and will move you towards becoming an overcomer with life’s challenges. A person of determination never gives up, goes back, or quits. An overcomer has gained victory over areas in their lives that could have the potential to derail, hinder and even prevent success. Overcomers have mastered their fleshly appetites such as addiction, greed and sexual immorality, and have learned how to conqueror the enemy. To be successful not just in worldly pursuits but for the Kingdom of Christ you will need to be determined and an overcomer. Overcomers have endured the affliction of the “furnace” and come forth as “pure gold.”

Counselor's Corner: How To Get Out of The Pit

What are your thoughts towards yourself? Do you tend to focus on your faults, mistakes and weaknesses more than your strengths? If you make a mistake do you belittle yourself and call yourself destructive names? Are you concerned about others perceptions about you? Are you trying to get other people out of their “pit” while you are still in your “pit?”

Focusing on your weaknesses will cause you to stay in the pit. This pit is dug by your enemy the devil to keep you down with the hopes you will never climb out.

Not everyone stays in the pit, some get out quickly because they know who they belong to-Jesus Christ, and some get stuck in the pit because they believed all the lies that the enemy whispered in their ears and received the lies as TRUTH!

For the ones who got stuck in the pit BUT starting crawling out inch by inch they have learned about battle. When they come out of the miry, dark pit, they will come out with some dirt and some scars from the climb up but will be a fierce warrior for the Kingdom of God. When you have been in the pit and you find out how to get out, you never want to go back. When you have been covered in darkness you crave the light!

Once you get stuck in the pit, it can take years to get out because as you’re in the pit the enemy begins to strip you of all you know to be true about God and His goodness. In the pit the enemy shovels by the truckload all the mistakes, regrets and past failures you have endured. You begin believing in the pit that God’s blessings are for others, and that you are being punished for receiving the very things your enemies are getting.

For some in the pit they begin to wallow in self-pity and learn to become a victim. Others try and reach down to get them out of the pit and they themselves fall into the pit. If someone is in the pit and they are surrounded by self-pity, blaming, and being a victim-you can’t pull them out of the pit; only Jesus Christ can reach down that dark pit and get them out!

If you have gotten out of the pit, be careful of others who want to pull you in the pit with them.

If you are around someone who confesses Jesus Christ as their Savior but they also confess the “woe is me story,” pray that God will get them out of their pit of destruction but you keep moving forward away from the pit.

If you are in the pit and want out know that there will be some warfare in the beginning. This is because the enemy enjoyed oppressing you and kept you bound from living the abundant life, but when you get sick and tired of being sick and tired-you learn to fight and disarm the enemy at every step. You will need to get up every day suited up as a warrior, and not back down until all of your enemies are under your feet. Decree and declare every day that you have the victory in Jesus Christ and that you will not only get out of the pit but you are staying out for good. Your focus must begin to change from all that is wrong with yourself, others, and your circumstances.

Out of the pit thinking focuses on what is good about yourself and your circumstances. Getting out of the pit and staying out will require that you know who you belong to and your authority in Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ has given believers the authority to trample upon snakes and scorpions and over all the power of the enemy-USE THIS AUTHORITY! You will need to become aware of hidden pits that are secretly laid out by the enemy with the hopes you will stumble in the pit again. Hidden pits cannot always be seen coming, so you will need to know what the enemy has used in the past to throw you in the pit, and when you sense these similar things are coming your way-resist immediately and turn the opposite way.

If you want to stay out of the pit you cannot go after others in the pit, nor try and rescue them from their pit. You want to keep your heart and spirit guarded from anyone who is saying, “Help me, help me,” yet not doing much to get themselves out of their pit. Of course, we should help those who cannot help themselves but this is not what I am referring to here. I am referring to people who have gotten comfortable in their pit, been there for years and want you to get them out while they continue to do things that are destructive.

The bottom line is you can get someone out of their pit, but if they continue doing what they are doing, they will go back to their pit. Each time we go back to the pit, it will get harder to get out. That is why you see many people repeating destructive cycles in their lives and never overcoming them.

Are you ready to stay out the pit and never go back? Staying out the pit does not mean you will never have to face a challenge but it does mean you are believing the truth about God’s blessings and goodness towards you, and you no longer condemn and beat yourself up for your failures, weaknesses and faults. You see yourself now as a daughter or son of the living King. You can give yourself permission not to be perfect, and you can now enjoy yourself. Victorious overcomer is embedded into your spirit.