Your perception on things could be ruining your life. Liberate your thinking through the Word of God!
"A bird can land on your head, but only You can Let it build a nest there!" This is my spin regarding thoughts, off of German professor of theology, Martin Luther's famous quote, "You cannot keep birds from flying over your head but you can keep them from building a nest in your hair." I find this quote to be absolutely relevant in the health and positivity of our minds and thought life, ad our lives period. All kinds of thoughts enter our minds each day, that doesn't mean we just roll over and take them all, sometimes we have to put the effort in to expel certain thoughts. Thoughts that cultivate depression, fear, despair, temptation, and anxiety will come to us all at one point or another, but we don't have to let the thoughts and ideas fester within us. We have the power to fight them, and we fight them with words, God's Word! A very similar version of this quote is a Chinese proverb that says, "You cannot stop the birds of sorrow from flying over your head, but you can stop them from nesting in your hair." Our quality of mind starts with the management of our thoughts. We can take control of them.
Our thoughts and they way we process those thoughts can either keep us stagnant in life, break us down, or build us up. The energy that we put forth cultivating our thoughts can take us from going with the flow of life, to trailblazing your path towards your destiny. I honestly believe that when change the way we think we can change our entire lives! The bible says it in Romans 12:2, "Do not conform any longer to the patterns of this world, but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be ale to test and approve what God's will is. His good, pleasing and perfect will."
That scripture straight up changed my life after I gave me life to Christ... for real! I heard that scripture before, but this one particular time it resonated in my heart and I finally 'got it'! To sum it up in my own words it's saying; "stop doing what other people are doing thinking its the right thing to do like present culture norms is the true standard for victorious living. You have to stop simply going with the flow of life and the way society functions. Instead, totally change the way you think by thinking like God thinks and allow yourself to change to that standard. When you pay attention to what you're thinking and make mental adjustments according to God's Word you can bet on Him that He's going to set you up for a life of beautiful, satisfying purpose."
This revelation had me really wanting to test Him out on this about 17 years ago (ugh that made me sound old just then). I was always taught that I should never question or test God, so when I saw that I could "test and approve" I was like.... aight it's on, I'm about to see what You're about God! I went home and meditated on this scripture for probably a month straight. Right when I woke up it was on my mind, all throughout the day until I went back to bed. I started really noticing the things that captured my attention, the inappropriate thoughts I would think, how distracted I was, how critical and judgmental I was, and how truly selfish I was. It made me feel really bad that I was so self-centered, and unreliant on God. Even though I was saved and loved God, my mind was unchanged and it was the same gunk in my thought life that was there before Christ. I just had restraint out of my love for Christ and was no longer acting on it. But I saw why God had this scripture jumping out in my spirit. He wanted to renew my mind so I could live a better life. So I set out to do some internal work, but it was easier than I thought, even though a lot the revelation I received were hard pills to swallow.
The first thing I did was stop conforming to what I was presently doing that the world felt was okay... I stopped going to the club, I stopped drinking and stopped smoking weed and blacks. Man that was hard for me initially because that's what I did with all my girlfriends to have fun! I used to love everything about going to the club. Getting ready for hours at my friends houses, or they coming to mine, doing our hair and makeup, swapping clothes, sipping on something, smoking on something, riding around parking lot pimpin, competing to see who get the most drinks from the most amount of guys and how much game was spit... it was exciting and I always was with girls who kept it fun! But when I made the decision to stop going out to the club I didn't have much in common with my girls anymore so they stopped coming around cuz that's all we used to do together. I was extremely lonely after this. To go from everyone around you and it always being a party at your crib to moving back in with your parents, working two jobs, going to church and watching tv... uh, yeah, huge lifestyle change. But I was determined to try the Word out all the way, whole heartedly. I wanted to "approve His good, pleasing and perfect will" for my life!
Then I transformed my thinking by meditating on the Word of God. This was not a difficult task for me in the beginning of my walk like it is now. God had my full attention then and I was always seeking Him with my whole heart full of trust and He would pour out His love and revelation on me... and I mean, like all the time. That was new my rush, it was soon exciting to know, that I know, that I know that the Spirit of God was ministering to me through a Word he wrote thousands of years pricking through my heart. He would satisfy my soul like I've never felt before! I grew up in church and felt goose bumps from the Holy Spirit before, but this... was like nothing I've ever felt before! I had connected intimately with a sovereign God who desperately loved me and did everything He could to get that love to me. Our secret place was so sacred, vulnerable, and transparent that I had no other desire than to change to continue to cultivate my communion with Him. I was totally in love with God and wanted nothing to break that fellowship with Him. I stayed longing for the presence of God to be in my midst and His Words in my mouth. It brought life to me. But I was still lonely because I used to have a host of friends, who now were gone. I felt like no-one understood me in my desperation for God. Everybody thought I was "doing too much" and said "it don't take all that". But for me, it did, it took all of that! I lost my identity, who everyone knew me as was changed and no-one quite knew what to do with me.
One of the scriptures that I came to when I would be in fellowship with the Word, was the one that said, 'ask and it shall be given to you.' So I asked God to bless me with friends who was on the same wave path on being committed to Him. A few days later one of my good friends from High School called me to catch up. After talking for two minutes we discovered that we both recently had given our lives to Christ and was passionate about living right. We connected so tough and held each other accountable in the Word in the early years of our Christ walk and her friendship was just what I needed to keep me headed in the right direction. We then made more friends with the same goals who are still some of my closest friends today. We moved in together and were roommates until I married my husband over 10 years ago.
I thank God that I cleared up a lot of that gunk in my mind before I made lifelong friends and before I met my husband and had our children. Actually I believe that clearing up that gunk in the Word of God is how I got all that I have today. I'm grateful for that Word that changed my life, and transformed me. I feel that God was separating me from everything that I knew at the time to change me. I wrote a song about this experience and it's called "Butterfly". (I'm getting ready to record it this year.) It's about a young woman's metamorphoses into an unashamed beautiful creature unafraid to be who she really is. I'm grateful that I called God out His promise, and that I gave Him my all while I did because the fulfillment of that promise is why I am who I am today. God does what He says He's going to do, and I'm grateful for that.
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Stephani D. Sturgis
Steph's Open Book
Life Blog
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