Don’t Give It a Second Thought

Stop imitating the ideals and opinions of the culture around you, but be inwardly transformed but the Holy Spirit through a total reformation of how you think. This will empower you to discern God’s will as you live a beautiful life, satisfying and perfect in his eyes. Romans 12:2 TPT

Lately my sleep has not been great. I find myself waking up in the middle of the night with thoughts racing through my mind. Does that ever happen to you?

For me, it starts with waking up and feeling a bit groggy. I have a thought or thoughts that are on a continual loop. It might be the to-do list I have for the next day. I’m so groggy that I’m not even thinking clearly enough to grab my phone and type in a note so I don’t forget. Instead, the thoughts spin round and round on a merry-go-round that doesn’t seem to want to stop.

I’m learning how to get off the merry-go-round. I had a few breakthoughs recently that I thought I’d share with you.

I woke with a thought of my finances. I could feel a panic hit me and without too much thought, in my groggy state, I spoke aloud, “God’s got this, go back to sleep.” I laugh at that now. But in the middle of the night, let me tell you those were quite possibly the wisest words I’ve ever spoken to myself. And guess what? I actually feel back to sleep!

You see, that wouldn’t have worked if I didn’t believe it. I know in my sleepiness that I can trust God. I know that is truth. I was faced with believing and agreeing with truth or continuing on the spinning merry-go-round in my head of doubt and fear. I chose to put all my eggs in the God’s got this basket.

In the early morning hours of this past Sunday, I woke with thoughts of my new book, Stop the Lies, coming out at the end of the month. I was thinking of how to promote it and what to say on an upcoming radio interview when I had a thought. It went something like this:

We all hear lies or have negative thoughts, just don’t give them a second thought.

Hello! That’s genius. That’s a God-thought for sure. Don’t give them a second thought swirled around in my head.

Thoughts come at us from all sorts of places. We may have a memory of something that was spoken to us and we can fixate on it. Or a thought can cross our mind and in an instant we have latched onto it and allowed it to bring us down.

I was listening to the podcast That Sounds Fun and Annie F. Downs was interviewing Jennie Allen. Jennie Allen said we have up to 9,000 thoughts a day and of those 70% are negative. (This was a really good podcast, click here if you’d like to listen to it. I’m recommending you do which is why I included the link.)

Did you catch that? 70% of our thoughts are negative. Wow! What if we didn’t give those negative thoughts a second thought? What if when we heard a lie, we spoke truth to them and didn’t give them a second thought or third thought?

Stop the Lies teaches how to overcome the lies we hear and walk in the freedom that is ours in Christ by grabbing hold of truth found only in Scripture. We can ask the Holy Spirit to transform our thoughts. Romans 12:2 explains that once we allow Him to totally reform our thoughts we will be empowered to discern God’s will and we will live a beautiful life.

Friends, that is a great promise!