God's Sees Your Disappointment
Good Morning Ladies (and few gents),
Every story whether a book, movie, or play is often constructed similarly. The work consists of a backstory, characters, plot, metaphor, narrative, inciting incident, and authenticity. Lately, I’ve been spending time with the Comforter (Holy Spirit), uncovering my backstory—that is everything that took place before. It has been a time in awesome wonder. It has been a revealing exercise in humility, awe, circumstance, assurance, power, purposed pain, and ultimately great joy.
GiG, it is in our backstory that we can learn to be transformed instead of transferring pain. We can choose to see our life through a lens of curse or blessing. When we understand where we come from, it will help us understand where we’re going.
Why is this important you ask?
For the past two weeks, I’ve been teaching clients to identify and understand cognitive distortions. Cognitive distortions are simply exaggerated or irrational thought patterns that take our mind where we don’t want it to go. This ultimately effects our day-to-day state of mind. There are 15 cognitive distortions that individuals may experience.
One distortion I’d like to share is blaming. Satan used it on Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, that’s because it works at distracting. Yup, it started back in the Garden and continues to be perpetuated today. Don’t think so, pause for a moment and ask yourself—Who have I blamed for something in the past 24 hours? Worse yet, what have I been blamed for? Yup, that’s what I thought. Don’t get it twisted; Satan will use this cognitive distortion to his advantage.
In Genesis 3:12-13, Adam and Eve tried to shift blame.
12 The man replied, “It was the woman you gave me who gave me the fruit, and I ate it.” 13 Then the Lord God asked the woman, “What have you done?” “The serpent deceived me,” she replied. “That’s why I ate it.”
In Proverbs 19:3, we see some blaming God.
People ruin their lives by their own foolishness and then are angry at the Lord.
In Matthew 7:1-5, an often-paraphrased passage by non-believers, we are cautioned not to judge others while we fail to acknowledge our own sin.
1“Do not judge others, and you will not be judged. 2 For you will be treated as you treat others. The standard you use in judging is the standard by which you will be judged. 3 “And why worry about a speck in your friend’s eye when you have a log in your own? 4 How can you think of saying to your friend, ‘Let me help you get rid of that speck in your eye,’ when you can’t see past the log in your own eye? 5 Hypocrite! First get rid of the log in your own eye; then you will see well enough to deal with the speck in your friend’s eye.
May we be encouraged to fix the cognitive distortion of blaming that may be playing havoc with our lives. This kind of “stinkin thinkin” can be undone, but it takes effort and lots of practice.
Called to serve and encouraging others to thrive,
DEA: Embracing a Work-Hard, Rest-Well Life and Loving My Priorities, Loving My Life
