Listen don't think!

"For as he thinketh in his heart, so is he." ~ Proverbs 23: 7a KJV

Today as I sat down about to start my morning devotions I wrote down something that has been in my heart for awhile, I will share it exactly as I jotted it down...

"For years I've let the opinions of other affect how I've viewed myself. I'm hard enough as it is on myself. I chose to listen to God. What He has to say about me, and let His word affect me, let His word transform me, let His word consume me!"

After I wrote it, I began this post and I'll be honest and tell you that I wasn't going to share my personal thoughts with you. I was going to try to be a bit more eloquent and make you all pensive and reflective about your life. But that's not the purpose of this blog. The purpose of this blog is to let go of my fears and write what is in my heart.

Whether we like to admit it or not the things people say affect us. Whether it's positive or negative it affects us. It can encourage us, or stump us. It can edify or it can destroy. If this were not true why would sports teams need cheerleaders, why would children need to receive certificates of outstanding achievement, or adults need to receive degrees or proof of completion of anything.

However, the negative things we receive from others tend to hold more weight. If you let it, it will begin to become who you are. A person that is constantly looked as lazy, a loser, angry, stubborn, a mess, etc., will begin to fit those roles that you or someone else didn't think twice about spouting out about them.

For many years I cowarded under the weight of all the things that had been spoken about me, the negativity felt like a ton of bricks I could never shake off of me. Then my life's goal was not to be who I wanted to be, but to prove to the naysayers that I wasn't who they thought I was.

There are many of us on a life's mission to prove we are something, that we are outstanding, that we are unique and not carbon copies of others. Yet we go to the same schools, wear the same clothes, follow the same fads, and struggle to fit in. We outcast others and envy others.

Beloved let me tell you something, you are already outstanding, you are unique and you are beautifully made

" I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works,  my soul knows it very well." ~ Psalm 139:14 NIV

The Lord has already made you, and He says you are wonderful. He took His time making us all unique and outstanding in our own ways. You don't have to sit and think about what you have to do next to prove yourself to others, or to yourself of how great you are. Just pay attention to what God has already said about you.

Blessings