Self-Examination- Part 1
Nurturing the Mind, Body & Spirit:
Last night I attended the weekly Fishers of Men Wednesday night service and to my surprise I was again inspired and motivated by another powerful message by Jimmy Forystek. (http://fishersofmenchurch.org/) God just works like that. He tends to speak to you at just the right moment. There are no coincidences with God! The sermon drove home one simple point; you are the most important person in the world. It’s so true because if you aren’t taking care of yourself then how can you be anything for God, for your family and friends, for your recovery, and for the rest of the world? The simple answer is you can’t! The message went on to talk about self-examination and walking in faith. Of course this got my brain firing on all cylinders and I came up with a wonderful idea for this blog and my recovery. The sermon was based off of II Corinthians 13:5.
Examine yourselves, whether ye be in the faith; prove your own selves. Know ye not your own selves, how that Jesus Christ is in you, except ye be reprobates? II Cor. 13:5
At least once per week, if not more, I am going to conduct a self-examination of my mind, body and spirit to determine where I am and what I need to work on. This way I will be able to track my growth and discover the character defects and challenges in my life that I need to either eliminate or cultivate. My hopes are that you will do just the same thing. This is something anyone can do and you don’t have to be in recovery to do a weekly self-examination. It’s almost like a system of checks and balances for yourself because at some point you will be standing before God and only you will have to answer for the choices you made.
When I stand before God I want him to see through all the poor decisions I made and see the dedication and determination I had to preserve through life in an effort to bring glory to his name and kingdom. Yes, I fully acknowledge all the wrong decisions I have made that deceived God, my family, my friends, my girlfriend, and myself but I am fully committed to righting those wrongs and mending those relationships. This blog and journey is a way for me to share my experiences, strengths and hopes with the simple goal of revealing the wonderful healing power of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ through straightforward everyday life choices.
Self-Examination Week 1:
Mind:
The mind is such a powerful and dangerous instrument all at the same time. One moment you can be thinking so positive and then something happens and your brain just totally switches into pessimistic mode. Well, I don’t know about you but this happens to me all the time. Though I am trying to work on this everyday and I am trying to counter the negative thoughts with positive ones. This is where self-esteem comes into play and you truly become what you think you are. If I think I am an awesome spirit being who is deeply loved by God then my spirits are high, my activity is intense and my life becomes productive. If I fall into the trap of believing the lies of my depressing thoughts then my world and recovery gets flipped upside down and I inevitably go nowhere. It’s like I am treading water in the middle of the ocean with no shore in sight. This is exactly what unconstructive and irrational thoughts do to you. These harmful thoughts are the self-destructive tool the devil uses to creep into your mind to destroy you. These negative thoughts lead to making poor decisions like running back to the bottle or fleeing deep into the insanity of your eating disorder. Well now, the question is then how do we deflect these harmful thoughts?
I am not an expert or therapist but I can share with you what I am doing and what is currently working for me. Every day I fill my mind with the word of God from the King James Version of the Holy Bible. I try to memorize two power verses per day so that I can rebuke the devil and the self-sabotaging thoughts that come into my mind. Power verses are anything that speaks to you in the moment or a motivating verse that gets you fired up about serving God. Right now, I am currently focusing on verses pertaining to the strength through Christ and verses that pertain to the negative consequences of drinking alcohol. A few examples would be;
Philippians 4:19
But my God shall supply all your need according to his riches in glory by Jesus Christ.
1st John 4:4
Ye are of God, little children, and have overcome them; because greater is he that is in you, than he that is in the world.
Proverbs 23:21
For the drunkard and the glutton shall come to poverty.
I have found that speaking the word of God has great power which even the devil is no match for. Jesus also when tempted in the wilderness for 40 days quoted scripture to rebuke the devil. There is truly wonder working power in God’s word. I devote a few hours per day to memorizing scripture. My suggestion would be to start with small verses that speak to you and read over them and write them out until you have the verse embedded in your memory. Negative thoughts can creep up on you at anytime and it is awesome to have a weapon to banish these thoughts in a matter of seconds. Again, the devil is no match for the word of God.
My other suggestion would be to fill your mind with positive affirmations and inspirational quotes. I read quotes every morning and coach myself with positive affirmations. You become what you think so if you fill your head with greatness and positivity, then you become transformed by these thoughts and remarkably your day will be enlightened with peace and happiness. I do this each day because in life and recovery, it’s all about living in the moment. Here is a great link on affirmations which can help you to jump start your day on a regular basis; http://www.creativeaffirmations.com/index.html So wake up tomorrow and tell yourself; I can, I can, I can recover and I am, I am, I am an awesome spirit being with magnificent worth as a person!
Here is the weekly self-inventory of my mind and thoughts. This week has really been uplifting and my spirits have been pretty high. I am currently feeling very optimistic about myself and my life. I spoke with my mom on the phone yesterday and she told me how great I sounded. That was a total blessing and made my day. I was also full of jokes yesterday and made my girlfriend Julia laugh all day and she loved how happy and funny I was. Praise God for he is allowing my true personality to shine through adversity. I must be totally honest though and say that there are times when I get down and those self-defeating drinking thoughts do creep in. However, I immediately rebuke them using scripture and they are instantly gone. In the past, I would dwell on these thoughts for days and it would eventually lead to a relapse. Now, I am learning to deflect these voices and thoughts and use them to motivate my recovery. There are also times when I get down about not having a job but I quickly tell myself I am doing everything I can right now and that God is at work in my life. This is also when I use positive affirmations and I verbally tell myself this daily; "Today is filled with opportunity. Everywhere I look I see it, and I trust my intuition to follow where it leads."
So I am actually quite excited about today and what lies ahead for me in the near future. My life is not perfect but I am trusting in Gods great plan and I will go where the Holy Spirit leads me. I was going to make this post on the mind, body, and spirit but apparently I write too much and I don’t want to make this post to long so I will continue with the body, and spirit inventory tomorrow making this a series of 3 separate posts. I will do this each week in the hopes to grow spiritually, mentally and physically. Remember, your thoughts affect the choices you make and these choices will directly affect the course in which your life takes in the future. So let’s think positive and believe that we can overcome and succeed. You are the most important person in the world and God is counting on you!
I would like to leave you with this simple quote to meditate upon today.
"It is our choices...that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities." -J K Rowling
To be continued…..
Live Strong,
Patrick
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