July 1, 2008

Dear Jane and all the ladies there,

My heart is full this morning.  I have so much to tell you younger ones.  It is not that I am so much smarter or more religious than you. It is that God seems to put these writings on my heart and I must do it. If one of you can gain encouragement from them and it eases your life then it has served its purpose.

The Israelites after fleeing from bondage in Egypt wandered in the wilderness for 40 years. The Promised Land was so close but God would not a1low them to go there until their hearts were right with Him.  They were rebellious, filled with self-pity, ungrateful to God for the very food he sent down from Heaven for them each day.  They built idols and worshiped them.  They were so close and yet so far.

How you think and act while you are in the wilderness determines how long you stay there. When we first come to Christ we need to go through an adjustment time. We can build spiritual strength. How we respond to our challenges makes all the difference in the world. If your life is a mess, then your mind is a mess.  “As a man thinks, so is he.” Where the mind goes, the man follows. Our thoughts prepare us for action. Jesus died to set us free. We need to set our minds to reach the Promised Land. Set your mind and let nothing deter you from it. When you are new in Christ you will have problems, but you have God at your side.  Only 2 of the original Israelites crossed the Jordan River into the Promised Land. The rest were off-springs of the original ones.

The mind is the battlefield. If Satan defeats you in your mind, he will defeat you in your life. You have to control what you think. The Israelites thought the inhabitants of those lands were the problem. You have to choose your thoughts carefully. When the Devil says you can’t, we need to remember that with God all things are possible.

The Israelites had all these “ites”, the inhabitants of those lands, that they thought was the problem. We too may have our “ites”. We have to make a conscious decision to dwell on the positive things God has in store for those who follow his plan of Salvation. Our human tendency is to do what is the easiest at the moment.  

When we are striving to make good decisions about our thoughts, it takes some effort to stop ourselves when negative thoughts come into our mind. Before we understand this we might think, “I can’t control what I think!” Oh, yes, you can! When thoughts come into your mind that is not in keeping with your new walk with God, you CAN banish them. Say, “I’m not thinking like that anymore! I have new life and new thoughts with Christ Jesus. This is the only life you will ever have.  This is IT. I am imperfect but I believe God loves me with all my imperfections. It wasn’t their enemies keeping the Israelites in the wilderness. It was their mindset. Our minds and our thoughts form our attitude. We can learn to control ourselves.  The devil can tell us we have no hope.  It’s the devil’s job to take away our Joy and our Peace.  He is the happiest when we are the as miserable as can be.

When we have a loss, an injustice, we should give it to God. He can use it to bless us and to teach the other person. When injustices occur, we become frustrated, we’ve been mistreated. We can allow ourselves to become bitter. When we are in that mental state we cannot be in communion with God.  Satan is so pleased.  Our Joy, our Peace is apart from us.  But Jesus said that to walk together you have to be of like mind. That means we need to try to think as nearly as we can as Jesus does. When we refuse to succumb to those negative feelings, we can keep our Peace, We should never try to get revenge or get even. God’s Word tells us to pray for our enemies, to love them even though they come against us. Then by giving the injustice to God and allowing Him to settle our accounts, we will come out on top.  God has great plans for our lives.

Jesus is right next to us.  His heart’s desire is that we walk daily in the abundance that God has promised for us. We can control how we think, how we act.  I sometimes think of a Christian as a mighty oak tree, pulling up sustenance from the grounding of God,. When the winds come and the thunder roars, the tree is able to bend but the spirit which comes from, God keeps it from breaking. We can overcome anything that the devil sends our way.  

Not in ourselves but leaning on the promises God has given us. The 123rd Psalm is a perfect example. ‘Yea, tho I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil,…’ Read it over  and over until i t becomes automatic that when you feel troubled to say it to yourself.  He promises to keep us under His mighty wings. He will settle all our scores. He will punish our enemies if we do as he told us to do. We must learn to ask God to forgive those who wrong us.  It was and is hard for me to feel loving and kind and forgiving to those who hurt me.  I must remind myself that God loves them just as much as he loves me or anyone else. He wants us to forgive them and even tells us in the Lord’s Prayer that we will be forgiven the same way we forgive those who wrong us.

I will share with you one of the things that I do when I begin to have thoughts that will bring me down and make me feel sorry for myself and bring discouragement.  When those thoughts start coming, I say these things to myself.  “Oh, yes, you are so pitiful!  Maybe you would like to swap places this morning with a woman in Bosnia who has lost her whole family to a bomb in the night.  Or maybe you would like to be the woman in Somalia whose children’s bellies are swollen from starvation and they beg you for food and you have none to give them.  Or maybe you’d rather be a “bag lady” homeless on the streets of New York City, or live in house made of animal dung and sticks with a dirt floor?  GET A GRIP, WOMAN!! You have a wonderful life compared to so many others.  You earn enough to take care of your needs and most of your wants.  You have a comfortable home, a palace by some of the world’s standards. You have running water, good heat, a car that is paid for, houses that are paid for, a good healthy body, a job-but  even more important, you want to work, so you can stand tall and be proud of yourself.  You are intelligent enough to know how to get around in this life, you have good eyesight and a compassionate heart.  You have a wonderful family who love you so much.  You have Peace and Joy in your life.  You have God to protect you from all harm and his promise that whatever you set out to do in the name of Jesus will be blessed with abundance. What more do you want????  GET AWAY FROM ME DEVIIL!  I WILL NOT ALLOW YOU TO CONTROL MY THOUGHT’S AND MY MIND! MY LIFE IS PROTECTED BY THE BLOOD OF JESUS!  HIS  POWER IS MUCH STRONGER THAN YOURS WILL EVER BE!! .

Oh, thank you, Jesus, my attitude adjustments really do work. When I take the time to think on my Blessings, I realize that I am truly blessed. I feel like one of God’s special children and I can keep that feeling as long as I walk with him of like mind. As long as I keep my thoughts centered, focused on the goal of my life which is to live as close to Him as I can. I want to give God my best. I will see Heaven if I do that, yes, but I will also have Peace, Joy, and Love overflowing in my life here on Earth. If I had just one wish to be granted, it would be that I could let people experience the feeling that I have deep down in my soul. Then everyone would want it too. I need to find someone to bless each day. My heart is so full.                   

In Christian love,

Ms Peggy