Psalm 28:7 “The Lord is my strength and my shield; my heart trusts in him, and he helps me. My heart leaps for joy, and with my song I praise him.” This episode is about how the Lord is our strength and our shield. It talks about how God protects us from things that we don't even know about. It also talks about how important our mindset is. Music:"Adding the Sun" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
What’s Your Story?
Psalm 28:7 “The Lord is my strength and my shield; my heart trusts in him, and he helps me. My heart leaps for joy, and with my song I praise him.”
The Lord is my strength and my shield. This is something that I am not sure we always realize. I think most of the time, we know that the Lord is our strength. Or, at least we know that we can ask Him for strength and He will give it to us. I think when we think of the Lord, we most often think of Him as our strength vs. our shield. But, did you know that He is your shield as well. This is the part of the job that probably goes most unseen and most unrecognized. If we are weak and God gives us strength, we can usually tell. We are usually aware that He is helping us.
But, what about the times when He shields us from things that we didn’t even know about? This is when we don’t know how to thank Him because we didn’t even know that He did anything. I think about this when I get stuck in traffic or hit a red light when I am running late. I wonder what God is protecting me from. I wonder what would have happened if I had left 5 minutes earlier that day. I’m not saying that every time you get stuck in traffic, God is shielding you from something, but sometimes He might be. Have you ever had a morning when no matter what you did, you could not leave the house on time? Have you ever had a series of strange things happen that caused you to switch up your routine?These could be times when God is shielding you from something.
The next time that you have an experience where everything seems to be going wrong and you don’t know why, try thanking God for it. I know that may sound weird, but you will be surprised how much better you feel. Having a day or even just part of a day when everything is going wrong is very frustrating. We can get into a really bad mood, dwelling on the fact that nothing is going right for us. Our mood can start to spiral downward quickly. However, if you view this terrible start to the day as a gift from God, your mood will change. Instead of thinking that everything is going wrong and the world is conspiring against you, you can thank God for protecting you from something worse happening.
You probably will never know whether God was protecting you from something or not. However, the mindset change will be great. Most of the time, our mindset is based on our view of things. There is a saying that we view things not as they are, but as we are. This means that we view everything through our own lens. This lens is made up of our past experiences. Everything that you have been through up until this point is what makes up how you view the world. Two people with different experiences in life can go through the same experience and yet view it very differently. My husband and I often encounter that. We have different views on life and different experiences. We can both be experiencing something at the same time, and yet we feel very differently towards it. For instance, we can both be in the same car, stuck in traffic. He can be angry and frustrated, and I can be happy and grateful, same situation, different mindset. Also, we can both be sitting at the same football game, and he can be happy and cheerful, and I can be bored and frustrated. What we are feeling in any given situation is based on the thoughts that we are telling ourselves about that situation. I am not sure what you think of all of this. Maybe it makes sense to you, and maybe it doesn’t. I know when I learned about it, I was slow to believe it. However, the more I read about it, the more it made sense. Also, the more I read, the more I paid attention to my feelings and my thoughts. I played around with my thoughts and observed whether they affected my feelings or not.
How about you give it a try and see what you think. Think about a circumstance where you recently got upset. Think about why you were upset. What were the thoughts in your head when you were upset? Can you remember the story you were telling yourself? Let’s use the example of traffic for me to try to explain what I would like you to do. I would think about the last time I was upset. It would be when I was stuck in traffic. I was upset because I was going to be late for work. The thoughts in my head were: I should have left earlier. I shouldn’t have taken that extra-long shower. My boss is going to be so mad at me. How stupid I am for leaving late for work. I might get fired for being late. I think you can get the gist of my thoughts. The story I was telling myself was that I was wrong for taking a long shower, and now I was going to lose my job. Can you tell how this story was driving my feelings? Can you see how these thoughts would inevitably lead to upset feelings?Now, what about if I changed my thoughts? What if, when I saw traffic, I told myself a different story? What if I told myself that this was the perfect time to get caught up on that podcast I loved? What if I told myself that the traffic was a small price to pay for the happiness that a longer shower brought me? What if I reminded myself that I am always on time to work and that being late one day is not the end of the world? I could change my story to one where I give myself grace for being late and enjoying a longer shower.
Do you think this story and these thoughts would make me feel differently towards the traffic? What about your situation that made you upset recently? Can you change those thoughts and that story to feel better about it? The thing about the stories we tell ourselves is that we make them up, and we have control over them. Most of the time, these stories are not something we are consciously thinking about. Our stories tend to default to whatever we are used to thinking or what our past experiences have taught us about a certain circumstance. However, when you become aware that your stories are controlling your emotions, then you can pay attention and consciously choose to change your stories. It is not easy, but it is so great when you are able to do this. One reason knowing this is so powerful is that a lot of times, we can’t change our circumstances. When you are stuck in traffic, you can’t change that. Most of the time, you can’t do anything about the traffic except wait it out. Your attitude and emotions while you wait it out can make all the difference in the world. If you had a choice, would you rather wait in traffic, be upset, or be happy? Would you rather spend the time thinking about how much you hate traffic or how much you love the song on the radio?
Once you realize that your emotions are a choice, a whole new life opens up to you. One where you are in charge of your emotions instead of your emotions being in charge of you. It is an awesome feeling!!I was not intending to talk about this when I started writing this episode. I thought this episode was going to be about Joy, which I love talking about. However, it’s funny what happens when you let the Holy Spirit take over. I will address the second half of this verse in tomorrow’s episode. For today, take some time and think about your emotions, the story you are telling yourself, and how you can change that story to one that better serves you.
Dear Heavenly Father, I ask you to bless everyone listening to this episode today. I ask that you fill us with love today. We ask that you help us to recognize the stories we are telling ourselves that are unhelpful and not serving us. Lord, we ask that you help us replace those stories with better stories. We ask that you help us change our mindset and outlook on life. Help us to see the ways in which you are our strength and our shield. Heavenly Father, we thank you for the million ways that you protect us every single day that we don't even know about. Lord, we know that you are amazing, and we're so very thankful for all that you do for us. We love you, Lord, and we ask all of this in accordance with your will and in Jesus ' holy name, amen.