anxiety

18
Oct
2023

Who Do You Worship?

“The crucible is for silver and the furnace is for gold,

And the Lord tests the hearts.”

Proverbs 17:3

 

We live in a day of imitation and knock-offs.  I saw my daughter last week-end and she had a bag that said “The Tote Bag” on it. I asked her what the story was behind it. She doesn’t normally carry a bag around with her. She said that it was the in thing now. She did admit that hers was an imitation because it didn’t have the designer’s name on it.

How do we know if something is imitation or a knock-off? There is usually something that will give us a clue that something is not the genuine thing. Our verse from Proverbs starts out by helping us to understand how we can identify pure silver and pure gold. It has to go through a test. The test is fire.

The crucible is a vessel in a refining fire, a place where precious substances are tested, purified, and strengthened. The silver is tested in the fire to see if it truly is silver, and then as the silver is heated all of the impurities are melted out of the pure silver. The same thing happens for gold. As the gold is heated, the impurities are melted off and all that is left is the gold.

Our lives are no different. We all experience trials, challenges, difficulties, circumstances, events, or a stimuli in our lives. God allows these events to happen in our lives reveal what is in our hearts. These trials are meant to test us to see what is truly in our hearts.

There are really only 2 responses in our lives when a circumstance happens. There may seem to be a wide variety of responses, but in the end each and every response boils down to 2 different responses.

  1. We worship God and trust in His sovereignty. When we do this we will experience peace, hope, and joy even though we don’t understand what is happening because we are trusting in God’s perfect plan. As the trials are happening in our lives and we choose to trust God, the things in our lives that are not important or that are getting in the way of us worshipping God will slowly come to the surface and we can choose to surrender those to God so that we are more like Christ or we can choose to hold onto those things, which would put us into the 2nd
  2. We worship ourselves. Now I know that no one would ever say that they worship themselves. That would be preposterous. We might say of someone else though that they are proud or selfish. Who do you think they are worshipping as a proud and selfish person? What does this look like in the crucible, the test, the furnace, the fire, the challenge, the trial? The person may say or think things like, “What did I do to deserve this?” “This isn’t fair.” “What was God thinking?” These people become devastated by the tests that come into their lives. They can’t get out of bed because life just isn’t fair. They can’t do their normal daily responsibilities of life because they are so distraught by the trial in their lives. They are so self-focused that every little thing in life that happens pushes them over the edge. They are depressed or anxious or full of fear or angry because the trial that came into their life is not how they planned their life, and this thing is out of their control. This test that God sent is revealing exactly what is in the person’s heart. It is revealing who they worship.

So there question is who are you worshipping? If you are not sure who you are worshipping, check your responses to the trials that happen in your life. Do you become angry, depressed, anxious, or full of fear when life gets hard? Or do you seek the Lord in the midst of a trial and trust in His providential care over your life, no matter how hard the test is?

Is it wrong to go to the Lord and pour out your heart to Him when life gets hard? No, it isn’t. We need to walk in faith and trust in God, not in doubt, fear, anger, despair or anxiety.

Who do you worship? As you go through trials, the genuineness of your faith will be revealed and demonstrate who you are worshipping. What does the crucible reveal about the genuineness of your worship?

Posted by ddykema5@gmail.com in The Seasons of Motherhood, 0 comments
17
Feb
2021
Think about what you think about

Think about what you think about

Last week, I wrote about Scripture memorization and the transformation that it has had in my life. The transformation that has taken place is not that I can better remember where I laid my glasses, rather it has made an alteration in my thinking.

Do you ever stop to think about you’re are thinking about?

What do you think about? Have you ever taken stock in even those fleeting thoughts that are hardly even perceptible, and yet they are? I know it seems like a strange question to wonder if you have thought about what you think about, but our thoughts impact every aspect of our lives whether we realize it or not.

Let’s consider a few things that we all at some point or other have thought. “That’s not fair.” I know we have all thought this one. Someone else gets recognition and you worked just as hard. It may have even been your hard work that this person received accolades for and there was no acknowledgement of you. What about the friends that are disrespectful to you and say things that are not true, and your actions toward them have been nothing but kind and honorable. Have we thought, “That’s not fair?” Or even “what did I do to deserve this?”

I am sure many of us have thought, “This is so hard. I can’t do this.” Whatever the obstacle is in front of us, it appears to be too difficult. It takes too much effort. Whether it is the challenging friendship, the difficult child (or puppy right now in my caseJ), a difficult spouse, or a grueling job. The list could go on, but there are many things in life that feel so overwhelming and we think, “I can’t do this.”

As we allow ourselves to think these thoughts repeatedly, they begin to impact our emotions. Our emotions begin to be a byproduct of our thoughts. Again, this is not something that we are even aware of.

What are we feeling when we experience the “That’s not fair” thought? If someone else receives recognition that we should receive, we might experience anger. What is at the root of that anger? We wanted the recognition, but what is at the root of us wanting the recognition? We feel like we deserve it. Rather than being happy for the other person that received the recognition, we want our fair share.

What about when you are in a “discussion” with someone and you begin to feel angry because they do not see your point of view on things. What is it you are thinking: “I just want them to understand what I am saying. I want them to see my point of view. I want them to agree with me. I just want to be heard.” When the other person does not see things our way, we get angry.  Did you ever stop to think about what they are trying to say? See their point of view? Actually listen to them and seek to understand with more clarity? That anger you are experiencing is rooted in you wanting your way.

When things are harder than you thought they should be and these circumstances that you are confronted with seem too hard, what are you thinking? “I can’t do this. Why are things not going the way I thought they should be?” These thoughts can lead to feelings of anxiety or depression.

So what are you thinking? What do you need to do? When you experience an emotion, you need to evaluate it. What are you thinking? What are you wanting?

Take some time to evaluate what you are thinking and what you are wanting. Begin to evaluate these emotions, and trace them back to your thoughts.

“As a man thinks in his heart, so is he.” (Prov. 23:7).

Posted by ddykema5@gmail.com in The Seasons of Motherhood, 0 comments