rebuild – Grow Anyway

STOP and ABOUT-TURN

December 14, 2022December 13, 2022by Liz Goss2 Comments

There are 2½ weeks left in 2022 and I have a message for you: stop and about-turn. When you read those words, they probably caught in your throat and you instantly thought of something. We all need to stop and turn around in some area. So let’s look at twenty things we can stop doing and how we can turn them around with truth from scripture.

STOP: taking control

ABOUT-TURN: remember God is in control

“And we know that God causes everything to work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to his purpose for them.” – Romans‬ ‭8‬:‭28‬ ‭[NLT‬‬]

STOP: worrying

ABOUT-TURN: pray

“Don’t worry about anything; instead, pray about everything. Tell God what you need, and thank him for all he has done. Then you will experience God’s peace, which exceeds anything we can understand. His peace will guard your hearts and minds as you live in Christ Jesus.” – Philippians‬ ‭4‬:‭6‬-‭7‬ ‭[NLT‬‬]

STOP: saying “I can’t”

ABOUT-TURN: say “I can”

“For I can do everything through Christ, who gives me strength.” – Philippians‬ ‭4‬:‭13‬ ‭[NLT‬‬]

STOP: giving into temptation

ABOUT-TURN: escape temptation

“The temptations in your life are no different from what others experience. And God is faithful. He will not allow the temptation to be more than you can stand. When you are tempted, he will show you a way out so that you can endure.” – 1 Corinthians‬ ‭10‬:‭13‬ ‭[NLT‬‬]

STOP: giving up

ABOUT-TURN: persevere

“So let’s not get tired of doing what is good. At just the right time we will reap a harvest of blessing if we don’t give up.” – Galatians‬ ‭6‬:‭9‬ ‭[NLT‬‬]

STOP: letting anger control you

ABOUT-TURN: forgive

“Sensible people control their temper; they earn respect by overlooking wrongs.” – Proverbs‬ ‭19‬:‭11‬ [‭NLT‬‬]

STOP: letting your mind wander

ABOUT-TURN: control your thought life

“We destroy every proud obstacle that keeps people from knowing God. We capture their rebellious thoughts and teach them to obey Christ.” – ‭‭2 Corinthians‬ ‭10‬:‭5‬ ‭[NLT‬‬]

STOP: filling your mind with garbage

ABOUT-TURN: fill your mind with virtuous things

“And now, dear brothers and sisters, one final thing. Fix your thoughts on what is true, and honorable, and right, and pure, and lovely, and admirable. Think about things that are excellent and worthy of praise.” – Philippians‬ ‭4‬:‭8‬ ‭[NLT‬‬]

STOP: hanging out with people that lead you to sin

ABOUT-TURN: find friends that help you grow

“Don’t be fooled by those who say such things, for “bad company corrupts good character.”” – 1 Corinthians‬ ‭15‬:‭33‬ ‭[NLT‬‬]

STOP: feeling guilty

ABOUT-TURN: confess and be forgiven

“But if we confess our sins to him, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all wickedness.” – ‭‭1 John‬ ‭1‬:‭9‬ ‭[NLT‬‬]

STOP: sinning over an over

ABOUT-TURN: confess your sin and stop

“People who conceal their sins will not prosper, but if they confess and turn from them, they will receive mercy.” – Proverbs‬ ‭28‬:‭13‬ ‭[NLT‬‬]

STOP: doubting

ABOUT-TURN: trust

“But if you have doubts about whether or not you should eat something, you are sinning if you go ahead and do it. For you are not following your convictions. If you do anything you believe is not right, you are sinning.” – Romans‬ ‭14‬:‭23‬ ‭[NLT‬‬]

STOP: looking everywhere for truth

ABOUT-TURN: look to God’s word

“All Scripture is inspired by God and is useful to teach us what is true and to make us realize what is wrong in our lives. It corrects us when we are wrong and teaches us to do what is right. God uses it to prepare and equip his people to do every good work.” – 2 Timothy‬ ‭3‬:‭16‬-‭17‬ ‭[NLT]

STOP: asking everyone around you what to do

ABOUT-TURN: ask God

“So let us come boldly to the throne of our gracious God. There we will receive his mercy, and we will find grace to help us when we need it most. – Hebrews‬ ‭4‬:‭16‬ ‭[NLT‬‬]

STOP: blaming other for our wrongdoing

ABOUT-TURN: take responsibility

“For we must all stand before Christ to be judged. We will each receive whatever we deserve for the good or evil we have done in this earthly body.” – 2 Corinthians‬ ‭5‬:‭10‬ ‭[NLT‬‬]

STOP: getting drunk

ABOUT-TURN: take your problems to God

“Don’t be drunk with wine, because that will ruin your life. Instead, be filled with the Holy Spirit,” – ‭‭Ephesians‬ ‭5‬:‭18‬ ‭[NLT‬‬]

STOP: speaking harshly

ABOUT-TURN: be gentle with your words

“Patience can persuade a prince, and soft speech can break bones.” – Proverbs‬ ‭25‬:‭15‬ ‭[NLT‬‬]

STOP: holding people responsible for their wrong doing

ABOUT-TURN: love each other

“Most important of all, continue to show deep love for each other, for love covers a multitude of sins.” – ‭‭1 Peter‬ ‭4‬:‭8‬ ‭[NLT‬‬]

STOP: holding grudges

ABOUT-TURN: forgive

“But when you are praying, first forgive anyone you are holding a grudge against, so that your Father in heaven will forgive your sins, too.”” – Mark‬ ‭11‬:‭25‬ ‭[NLT‬‬]

STOP: following whatever ideas you want

ABOUT-TURN: discipline yourself by scripture

“Do not waste time arguing over godless ideas and old wives’ tales. Instead, train yourself to be godly.” – 1 Timothy‬ ‭4‬:‭7‬ ‭[NLT‬‬]

Now for the challenge:

Pick one thing to STOP from the list above.
Write down what you need to do to ABOUT-TURN.
Memorize the related scripture verse (or carry it around with you) this week.

liz goss

You Can Experience God Now!

September 21, 2022September 20, 2022by Liz Goss1 Comment

Could it be that God needs to grow us into people who can handle having a deeply personal relationship with Him? It is always easy to point our faces to the sky in exasperation and wonder where God is. After all, we are trying to find Him. We are seeking. Isn’t that our job? To seek?

This my friends is limbo land and we’ve probably all taken up residence here at some point in our lives. Feeling like we are holding up our end of the bargain and begging God to just show up. Seeking. Knocking. Very focused on getting right before God and trying to manage our inevitable disappointment because we just can’t feel Him.

But while we are focused on feeling God’s presence, finding God’s will and knowing what He wants us to do, God is just… here. I know it sounds too good to be true after all our trouble and effort but it’s actually (sorry) not required. Our striving doesn’t earn His notice. He is noticing you right now.

And that’s why I say God may need to grow us to a place where we are able to have a beautiful relationship with Him. Because He is always with us. Jesus’ parting words to His disciples were: “and be sure of this: I am with you always, even to the end of the age.” (Matthew‬ ‭28:20‬)

God is always calling you to see more true reality. He is always looking for your gaze. Never doubt His perpetual protection or wonderful nature. We just need to get better at understanding Him. We need to learn who He is so we recognize Him. Keep our spirits open and sensitive by thinking on holy things. And most of all, we need to believe that God is with us because all too often we find exactly what we are looking for.

Experiencing God isn’t just about doing more – it’s about seeing more clearly.

VERSES TO PONDER:

“He will cover you with his feathers. He will shelter you with his wings. His faithful promises are your armor and protection.” (Psalms 91:4)

“Why do you ask my name?” the angel of the Lord replied. “It is too wonderful for you to understand.” (Judges 13:18)

“Dear brothers and sisters, when I was with you I couldn’t talk to you as I would to spiritual people. I had to talk as though you belonged to this world or as though you were infants in Christ. I had to feed you with milk, not with solid food, because you weren’t ready for anything stronger. And you still aren’t ready,” (1 Corinthians 3:1-2)

“I don’t mean to say that I have already achieved these things or that I have already reached perfection. But I press on to possess that perfection for which Christ Jesus first possessed me. No, dear brothers and sisters, I have not achieved it, but I focus on this one thing: Forgetting the past and looking forward to what lies ahead, I press on to reach the end of the race and receive the heavenly prize for which God, through Christ Jesus, is calling us.” (Philippians 3:12-14)

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Twenty Critical Minutes

August 25, 2021by Guest Blogger1 Comment

We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ. – 2 Corinthians 10:5 [NIV]

We have all heard about counting to ten when we are angry. Now neuroscientists are telling us that a twenty-minute period after strong emotions wash over us is a critical period. Why is this? The amygdala, a walnut-shaped organ in the mid-brain, whose job it is to detect threat, needs twenty minutes after it “alerts” to calm down. During that time this little organ is hijacking electrical energy from the front of the brain where we think and plan, to the brain stem where we either fight or flee.

So, the moment we become anxious, what we do with that twenty-minute period immediately afterward is critical. We can send up a 9-1-1 prayer, recite Scripture we have memorized, drink a glass of water, or take a quick walk before letting ourselves react. Immediately moving to a worst-case scenario may become our go-to strategy without a steady diet of prayer, Scripture, and reminding ourselves that God can handle even this tsunami of strong emotion.

A theologian from Proverbs 31 Ministries recently pointed out that when we react instead of respond, our actions become “historical and hysterical.” Without training, we will default to old and often ineffective strategies when we are triggered by our amygdala.

You do have a choice.

The amazing part of all this “brain stuff” is that we do have a choice about where those impulses travel when we are angry, afraid, or experiencing any strong emotion, especially during that critical twenty-minute period. But the brain must be re-trained over a fairly long period of time to “take thoughts captive” when the heat is on. When we “take a thought captive” we are literally re-routing electrical impulses down a new neural path!

The brain initially resists this because it has already created “super-highways” of connected neurons. It doesn’t want to slow down to bushwhack through a new neural tangle when learning a new strategy or response. As we pray, read the Bible, memorize Scripture and meditate on it, our brains can learn to slow down to re-tool, re-set, and restructure. When stressed, we can eventually learn to use those critical twenty minutes to pray, “Lord, calm all my fears with Your love. Help me remember Your truth.”

The key is consistent training, which includes reading, memorization, meditation on what we read, and application of truth to a specific situation, all requiring the assistance of our personal Coach, the Holy Spirit. We can also pray, “Holy Spirit, please train me and cue me and give me the energy to respond rather than react when I become triggered emotionally.”

How old are you really?

One last thought: When we react after being triggered, we go to our true emotional age rather than our chronological age. If an unresolved trauma happened between four and fourteen, we react like the age we were when we were damaged and branded by that incident. That is why people act like deranged adolescents or a toddler having a tantrum when triggered in public. So, part of emotional/spiritual development is actively seeking healing and counseling for unresolved hurts from our past. That unlocks us from our stuck places and lets us grow up to use that twenty-minute period in a healthy manner.

By the way, many of today’s Christian psychologists and counselors believe that spiritual growth and emotional growth are one and the same. When we commit to daily training with the Holy Spirit, our Coach, over time, and with God’s grace and truth, our brains can re-shape our neural thought highways so we grow up into mature strategies. God will do His part as we do our part so that fear and panic no longer hijack our healthy responses to threat and big challenges.

BY: Stephanie Murillo

FOR FURTHER STUDY

Philippians 4:8
Psalm 10:4
Psalm 13:2
Psalm 55:2
Psalm 139: 17, 23
Isaiah 55:8
Hebrews 3:1
Hebrews 4:12
Proverbs 31 podcast

liz goss

Praise God on Mother’s Day

May 5, 2021May 4, 2021by Liz GossLeave a Comment

“Give thanks to the Lord and proclaim his greatness. Let the whole world know what he has done. Sing to him; yes, sing his praises. Tell everyone about his wonderful deeds. Exult in his holy name; rejoice, you who worship the Lord. Search for the Lord and for his strength; continually seek him. Remember the wonders he has performed, his miracles, and the rulings he has given.” – 1 Chronicles 16:8-12 (NLT)

Sunday is Mother’s Day and I want to take the first sentence of this post to say: let this day be whatever you need it to be… but remember to be grateful. See, when I asked some friends about this yearly celebration I got feelings all over the map:

Love for my child and so much gratitude for being a mother.
Grief over a mother I am missing.
Struggling with mental health and have mixed feelings about being a mother.
Pain due to the mother daughter relationship I had.
Envy over those picture perfect moments that fill my social media feeds.
Empty ache over a child I lost even as I am grateful for the children I have.
Painful reminder that I’m not a mom yet.

Whatever Mother’s Day is or isn’t for you, it’s all okay. There’s room and space for the joy and the grief. It’s okay to talk about and feel all the sides of Mother’s Day. But because Mother’s Day is a day of celebration I challenge you all to spend some time preparing your heart to glorify God because of the gift of motherhood. We can all bring praise to God because of someone who personified a mother in our lives. There are three great ways (that popped into my brain) to carry out this exercise. So choose one or choose them all, but don’t forget to thank God for some aspect of moms this weekend.

WRITE – Put your thankfulness down in words. Thank your mother. Thank someone else’s mother. Be grateful for the ways you have been able to mother. Praise God for the ways he has mothered you. Pen to paper. Text. Write an email. Comment on this blog post. However you want to write out your thank you… do it.

ADVICE – We learn things from mothers and one amazing way to exalt motherhood is to share the advice we have received. Mom advice is priceless so glorify God by sharing some of it with others.

LAUGH – Being a mom can be… ridiculous. We do dumb things. Our kids do crazy stuff. We witness other mothers being off the wall geniuses. Let’s share some of this treasure trove and praise our good God for the laughs he’s brought along the way.

Sunday is Mother’s Day. If you need to cry today, cry. If you need to celebrate, celebrate. If you want to do both, do both. If you need to hide on Sunday and pretend it’s not Mother’s Day, that’s totally okay. From one woman to another, I give you permission to love yourself enough to ask for what you need from your loved ones for this day. But in the midst of all the things this world throws at us, let’s not forget to praise our God for the blessing of motherhood. Because through it all he is always good.

“Praise the Lord, the God of Israel, who lives from everlasting to everlasting! And all the people shouted “Amen!” and praised the Lord.” – 1 Chronicles 16:36

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Rebuild Trust

March 10, 2021March 9, 2021by amyoberg5 Comments

Can trust be rebuilt? Trust has been lost over the last year in a host of ways. It is not hard to see systems break down in our society, career paths squashed, and relationships took a huge hit in our world. Families, friends and just about every one of our relationships were challenged in trust…including our relationship with God.

What happens when things are broken in a relationship? How do we rebuild?

Recently, I heard a Ted Talks on this topic and it talked about rebuilding trust taking three things: authenticity, logic and empathy. These three pieces need to be present when working on a broken relationship.

Authenticity: We really need to be authentic in our relationships or then it is not a real relationship. (Psalm 119:73-74)

Empathy: Empathy is required to have a mutual relationship. It is defined as the ability to understand and share the feelings of another. (Galatians 6:2-3)

Logic: This part of the triangle fascinated me! Logic is the form of communication necessary to have understanding. (I know this is where people throw their hands up and determine that rebuilding trust requires the other person to be logical…but both parties need understanding). She drew a simple triangle to explain logic. (Proverbs 3:5)

Start with the story? Many of us start with story and maybe, maybe get to the point sometime in the future. When there is no trust or empathy, then the story will probably fog up the logic and create confusion in understanding if we ever get to the point.

Start with the point? Most of us should start with the point so it is not lost in the story. When rebuilding trust, we may have an opportunity to share the story when trust is built by the point.

This is an incredible formula that can be used in every relationship. Think about how you implement this in your life. When I am with people I trust, I tell them the whole story because the all details matter. When I am with someone I don’t trust, I usually get to the point pretty quick (and maybe I should more quickly). I usually try to tell people the story so they have empathy, but I’m learning it doesn’t work that way. Many times when I am telling a story and I see someone mentally check out…I should get to the point and wrap it up.

Hopefully you can take this formula into your life and put it to good use. While human relationships are hard, God does not need a formula. He loves you just the way you are, he is with you in your emotion, and he understands your story. Trust Him while rebuilding trust in other relationships.