Your Perception

Today, I got a message from someone so dear to me. She told me, “I always knew you would be successful because you have a sincere heart. That’s all God asks of us. That, and of course, trusts Him.

I sat and tears filled my eyes, feeling, so overjoyed. I can’t recall ever feeling so complete in my life. For years, I struggled with trying to balance my priorities and pursuing my writing. While trying to make such adjustment I did not consult the Lord, I didn’t even know Him enough to know,, I could call on Him about adjusting my priorities.

It was many years, before I came to understand that our Father who are in heaven cared so deeply for me. As I search my life, I believe the rejection, hurt and pain, I experienced was so I could relate to those God sends in my life. I believe the ongoing hassle of “how to balance my life and pursue my calling” is so vivid in my life because it is evident in many others lives.

To come to know who you are in God is a miraculous feeling, like no other. To be in His will is such a delight. As my faith grows daily, I am more and more at odds with the enemy; but, nonetheless, more intimate with the Father.

I compare my ups and downs in life, to the roller coaster of Job. He was doing things in a noble manner but one day he was tested. I felt like all I was doing was right; I went to college; I focused on my writing. But there was an abrupt interruption in my life, as in Job. The interruption tested my strength, but I failed.

I failed so, that I became like Adam, blaming others as He did in the garden with Eve. Because my faith was so low I could not stand. I thought less and less of myself. Others around me would tell me how much potential I had. However, when looking in the mirror I wondered who they are looking at, because I could never see her. The only thing that was clear to me was I failed. Solomon wrote, “As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he” (Proverbs 23:7).

This is further explained when Jesus called a crowd asking them to pay attention to the words he was about to say “It is not what enters into the mouth that defiles the man, but what proceeds out of the mouth, this defiles the man"(Matthew 15:11).

Peter did not understand and asked for an explanation. Jesus explained “that everything that goes into the mouth passes into the stomach, and is eliminated? But the things that proceed out of the mouth come from the heart, and those defile the man.

For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, slanders.
These are the things which defile the man; but to eat with unwashed hands does not defile the man"(Matthew 15:17-20).

Many struggle with their life not because they were given a bad hand but because of how they perceive themselves. When we look at our self in a depressing manner, we speak of our self in a negative manner which leads to the determination of what we will be. Our Father is most concerned with what is in our heart and what we think.

Maybe you have wondered if God cared what you thought. Perhaps you have concluded that you are not that great so God doesn’t have great things for you. Yet what is held in our heart effects us spiritually, mentally, and physically.

Consider changing your out look today. If you hear positive things from others about you, speak them over your life and receive them. Ask God to help you see yourself as He sees you. Call upon the Lord to eject the negative words within so you may blossom in the Lord. “For God sees not as man sees, for man looks at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart" (1Samuel 16:7).