What I believe in my heart determines the decisions I make.
If I believe I am slow and stupid, my decisions will reflect that and I may decide to avoid something out of fear of failure.
If I believe that I have strength, wisdom and agency, I may decide in favour of a challenge, knowing that I have every chance of success.
What I believe in my heart is also likely to come out of my mouth too, so I might find that people around me agree with the decisions I make, based on what I have told them that I believe.
But what if all I believe is a lie?
Likewise if I believe that God does not really care about me, nor does He personally listen to my prayers, then I will be unlikely to decide to spend my mornings in prayer, and will be unlikely to choose to spend my evening in a prayer group.
If, on the other hand, I believe that I am called and chosen by God to bear good fruit and to make disciples of all nations, I will decide to spend time in prayer and reading His Word. My decisions will be lining up with the Word of God for my life.
And what if all I believe is true?
Similarly what I believe about society, about health, about influence, about children, marriage and about every aspect of life and the world – whatever I believe will influence the decisions I make.
So I decide now to believe God’s Word, to believe that I am who God says I am. Because I believe this I will study and read His Word every day.
I believe that God is good and is all that the Bible says God is.
I believe that Jesus Christ is the way God has shown us to live by, so this is the way I choose to follow.
I have decided to follow Jesus, because I believe that He is the Way, the Truth and is Life.
Most Fridays, I join an online Christian writing community, Five Minute Friday. We are given a one-word prompt and write – unscripted, unedited, pure free-write – for 5 minutes. The prompt this week is DECISION
I do read through my script afterwards to correct obvious mistakes; to check scripture references and to find an appropriate image to illustrate the topic.
To read other FMF posts on this subject click BELOW.
Finally, here is our (optional) prompt for the day! In her poem, “The Flying Nightdress,” Mandakranta Sen describes something fantastical and strange that occurs while the rest of the world is asleep. The imagery of the poem is dreamlike, but the situation it describes is otherwise presented quite straightforwardly. Today, we challenge you to write your own poem that takes place at night, and describes something magical or strange that happens but that no one is awake (or around) to notice.
Sleep itself is magical and strange and it happens when we are not awake to notice!
The Miracle of Sleep
The miraculous dreams
while reason sleeps
and shows the heart
what the mind missed today.
The body rests in deepest ease
slowing systems down
cooling
stabilizing
regulating heart rate
and blood pressure
falling into restorative harmony and peace.
Meanwhile the miraculous unbidden
bolsters the immune system
firing up the waste disposal
to remove toxins
as micro nurses repair tissue,
build muscle and release growth
in an unaware anatomy.
Diligently the hippocampus files away
all the fragments of precious waking moments of you
consolidating memories into long term storage
preparing the processing, the bold filter-less
state of dreaming
when brain reawakens and
watches over a paralysed form
as it toys with the memories, experience and fears
Sorry I’m coming at this prompt late again. I nearly forgot altogether!
The scripture that came to mind is in Romans 12 – Do not conform, but be transformed…
Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.
Romans 12:2
Funnily enough, as I opened my Bible, my eyes fell on the following page, Romans 13, which grabbed my attention as it was talking about why we should submit to authorities.
I had to laugh at myself then and read what the Scriptures have to say, because only this morning, I had been asking such questions of the Lord.
I don’t know about you, but my life had been established on some dodgy foundations.
Much of my thought life was either wonky, or just plain false.
The enemies plan is to mess us up with lies. To mess up our thought life.
Joyce Meyer calls it ‘The Battlefield of the Mind’.
In AA it was called ‘stinking thinking’.
Things I believed about myself were lies.
Things I believed about men, women, children, authorities – even God Himself – were lies. And because my beliefs were wonky, so was my life.
Thankfully that is something that God can change; He wants to change.
Jesus is the Way, the TRUTH and the Life. The TRUTH sets us free.
Lies put us in bondage.
So God has been renewing my mind. He has been showing me the lies and replacing them with the Truth. With His Truth.
Recently I have done the ‘Freedom in Christ’ course and have been lovingly taken through the ‘Steps to Freedom’ contained within it. It has been very transformative, especially dove-tailing with the prayer ministry work of Elijah House, that I’ve also been a part of.
One suggestion at the end of the ‘Steps to Freedom’ is to create some ‘Stronghold Busters’, which I am doing. These are statements that identify and renounce the lies we believed, and identify and announce/declare the truth of God.
This is proper renewing of the mind.
If I want to be different, I have to think differently.
Replacing the lies with the truth just has to result in some healthy transformation!!!
So, this morning I was declaring my 3 Stronghold Busters’ – for the 40th day, (which is supposed to be the required time for the renewal of the mind) – but there was something niggling me about my first Stronghold Buster and I realised that I had not really addressed the truth properly.
This is what I asked the Lord about this morning and what He then answered by showing me Romans 13 this evening. The lies I believed were about authorities and Romans 13 addresses the truths I need to declare. So I now need to rewrite and amend that stronghold buster, to include some of the truths in this scripture, and then continue to declare it until it has sunk into my heart.
That first Stronghold Buster that I have been declaring for the last 40 days reads:
I renounce the lie that I cannot trust authorities and the lie that they are unsafe and do not have my interests at heart. I announce the truth that I can trust you, Father God, for you are my Rock, my hiding place and my teacher. I announce the truth that I can trust you and need not lean on my own understanding. I announce the truth that You have broken from me the generational curse of fear and mistrust of authorities. I announce the truth that You have given me a spirit of wisdom and discernment, to protect me and to know who I can trust.
Does this make any sense?
Can you see that I have not really addressed the lie ‘that authorities are unsafe and not to be trusted.’
My second Stronghold Buster, that I believe has begun its work of transformation in me is this one:
I renounce the lie that I have an addictive personality and the lie that one I start, I cannot stop. I renounce the lie that I am all or nothing! I announce the truth that I am a new creation and I am a temple of the Holy Spirit who lives in me. I announce the truth that I have been given the Spirit of love, power and self-control. I announce the truth that I have divine power in me to demolish strongholds and to make good choices. I announce the truth that He that is in me is great and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom to say yes, to say no or to say stop. I announce the truth that I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me, for I am free in Christ. Amen.
My heart and life WILL be transformed, by the renewing of my mind. And I will keep going as long as it takes.
Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.
This is what we want, isn’t it? We want to do God’s will for our lives. We want to be the persons He created us to be.
So if we allow Him to correct our wonky thinking, He can transform us into the likeness of Jesus and we will know what His perfect will for our lives is.
NaPoWriMo prompt: The idea is to write a poem in which two things have a fight. Two very unlikely things, if you can manage it. Or perhaps your two things could be linked somehow – like a rock and a hard place – and be utterly sick of being so joined.
dawnfanshawe 
