Tuesday, May 5, 2009

Conversations of the Mind

What does your self-talk sound like? Isn’t it amazing how easily self defeating talk can dominate our thought-life? Just as it is important to steer clear of hurtful or corrupt communication in our conversations with others, we must also guard against it in our conversations with ourselves. In His second letter to the Corinthians Paul wrote, “We take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.”

We need to recognize negative and unkind self-talk and replace it with truth – God’s truth. We would never dream of speaking to other people the way we speak to ourselves sometimes. I want you to begin identifying some of the unkind (and usually untrue) things you are saying to yourself. Our first step toward fighting the enemy is to recognize it. Often we grow accustomed to saying cruel things to ourselves, and we don’t even recognize the destructive thoughts.

The Bible tells us that Satan is an accuser and destroyer. God’s Spirit offers living water to refresh our souls with a message of His gracious love. This week, let’s begin to recognize some of the self talk we are doing. Let’s ask God to fill our minds with truth and get rid of mud-slinging. Next week we will look at a practical approach to changing some of our defeating self-talk into truth talk and a reassurance of God’s mercy and love.

Talk with your kids this week about some of the self-talk they may do. Talk about healthy words we can tell ourselves and compare them to some of the damaging words we can tend to say at times. You may want to give them a visual picture by setting some healthy food on one side of the kitchen table and a bowl of mud on the other. Ask them which one would be good for them to eat and benefit their body. Then tell them our self talk can nourish our soul or damage it. Just as we do not want to sling mud and hurt others, we also don’t want to sling mud on ourselves in the form of discouraging thoughts.

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