It’s been hard not to have negative thoughts of despair, regret and anger: every time I look at my stock portfolio I am gripped with anxiety.  This was money I had dutifully saved only to have it all come doubling down.

But only by focusing on the solution, even in the midst of total distress, can I find hope.  This is the test we all must go through, and 90% of the battle is mental.

So what do we do?  We have to use will-power and faith in God to wrestle with these thoughts:

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.

The context and probably the original intent was to set people up to withstand false prophesies and ideologies away from believing in Christ.

But I would say that anxiety, self-doubt, lack of self-worth — all those impact our ability to have a relationship with God and ignore that fact that He dwells within.  Bad things happen.  And when they do and we start to panic, doesn’t that mean we doubt the sovereignty of God?

Can the financial irresponsibility of those who brought upon us this economic crisis have thrwarted God’s plans?

What am I doing to take these thoughts captive?  I’m spreading it out in the next post, but it’s willpower and prayer.

My personal challenge: to go for 24-hours without a negative thought and instead to focus on solutions and gratitude.

Related posts:

1. Take every thought captive

In “Rising Son,” Da Wei, the protagonist of my story, is a slave among slaves who cannot believe that the tyrannical Xi Cai and his power-hungry son Kyung can be overthrown.

He, as do most people, look at themselves through the eyes of a man.  And, in reality, people experience the result of being viewed by what mortal men see.

But David, as one whose heart belonged to God, experienced God’s discernment.

Samuel, in speaking with God, sought to understand who would be annointed the next King.

Ordered to bring the sons of Jesse, he complied, and immediately expected the oldest son Eliab to be the anointed one:

“When they arrived, Samuel saw Eliab and thought, “Surely the LORD’s anointed stands here before the LORD.”

But the LORD said to Samuel, “Do not consider his appearance or his height, for I have rejected him.  The LORD does not look at the things man looks at.  Man looks at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart.”

1 Samuel 16:7-7

I find myself falling into that trap, applying the same optic on myself (on others) as Samuel did on Eliab and David.

It is so easy to compare our perception of our outward appearance with the outward appearances of others.  I heard someone comment to me that people often compare their insides with the outsides of others, and in that scenario, we will often feel badly.

But in this story, God clearly tells Samuel and us that he looks at the heart to “anoint” the one who will rise on his behalf.

No related posts.

Jesus said, “I am the vine; you are the branches.  If a man remains in me, and I in him, he will be much fruit….If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be given you.”

John 15:5-7

Jesus is the king “in” you and part of this blog is exploring what that actually means.  This passage reveals one way to both “remain in Jesus” and to allow the power of Jesus to remain in you, which is to keep the “words” inside.

It’s a powerful, but consistent, notion that Jesus is the word, and the way to keep Him within is to keep the word within.  What does that mean to so completely internalize those commands?

This seems consistent with the earlier entry that God sees the heart, and the way to transform the heart is to allow his spirit inside but to also take the diligent efforts of letting the truth of the living word literally seep into our bones by understanding those words.

So I see three basic types of entries (well, four) — one, where I look at the actual words of Jesus which will lead us to develop the “kingship”; the words and lives of actual Kings, primarily King David and King Solomon to find behaviors and outcomes to model to fulfill our own “king within”; and then, in keeping with the words, to look specifically at Proverbs, Psalms, and Eccelsiastes which are often attributed to King Solomon.

This is what I call the “Open Secret” — a way to experience a full and rich live deserving of a king by following the words of the King of all kings!

Oh, right, and the fourth type of entry is the more personal application — how do I actually apply these to my own life of trying to build a company, grow my relationships, and contribute to my community and to the redemption of the world.

No related posts.

The scripture talks much about the importance of having faith and what you can do with it.

But I need to investigate what is says about actually “building” faith.  Is it something that can be developed?

It doesn’t appear to be something that is explicitly talked about being developed.  Character is something that people talk about, but not faith, or at least as far as I can tell.

I will look into this some more.

No related posts.

It is a basic concept which I had read years ago, but I see that I hae difficulty in the application.  In having the tenacity, and the daily passion, to just focus and define that desire.

And then, of course, what should that desire be?

I know that the easy answer, the Christian-ese answer, is that the one and only desire is for God.  But in this blog, I want to explore the reality and struggle and real-life application of what that means and see how it manifests.

My desire right now is to have financial, relational, and spiritual abundance.  My desire is to see my Internet start-up blossom and yield me a financial gain of $50M.  My desire is to be able to impact hundreds, if not thousands of people, who would not otherwise come to know God and the community of believers.

I have started to write it down in this blog, in addition to my own journal and notebook, as part of an ongoing dialogue.

So what are healthy desires?  Are these “bad” because they are on something other than God?

For sure, part of this journey is to get into a mindset whereby placing God first, the desires we want first become shaped and filtered.

Ephesians 2:3:  “All o fus also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our sinful nature and following its desires and thoughts.  Like th erest, we were nature objects of wrath.”

No related posts.