Power Thoughts: 12 Strategies to Win the Battle of the Mind (26 page)

To be at peace with God we must try to obey Him to the best of our ability. We will not arrive at perfection while we are in fleshly bodies, but we can have a perfect heart toward God and try our best every day to please Him. I like to say, “Do your best and God will do the rest.”

Think about It

Are you at peace with God?

Are You Ready to Take a Shortcut?

I make mistakes every day but I don’t make them on purpose. I am not where I need to be, but thank God I am not where I used to be. I am growing and seeing good changes all the time. It took me many years to be able to make that statement. I hope I can help you take a shortcut that I didn’t know existed.

I concentrated far too long on what was wrong with me and finally learned that focusing on my faults only increased them. I had to learn how to focus on Jesus and what He had done for me, and I had to truly believe that He loved me unconditionally and would continually forgive me when He drew me into a relationship with Himself. We would do much better in our own personal relationships if we would realize that from time to time we will have to forgive; we can plan to forgive ahead of time instead of expecting perfection and always being disappointed when we don’t get it. That would enable us not to pressure others just as God never pressures us! When we feel pressured, it is from Satan, not from God. God leads, guides, urges, and prompts us, but He does not pressure us.

If you have a healthy relationship with yourself, you can take a shortcut and avoid years of agony that are completely useless. I remember the day that God whispered to my heart and said, “Joyce, it is alright for you to have weaknesses.” You see, I tried very hard to be strong in every area and I was constantly frustrated because I was trying to do something that I could not do. God’s intention was certainly not to tell me that I could just do whatever I felt like doing and it didn’t matter. He was simply showing me that if I did my best and still manifested weakness (which I always did) that He knew all about it and understood it and I did not have to be afraid. Paul said he was strong in the Lord, but he also said that he was weak in Him (see 2 Corinthians 13:4). Whether we are weak or strong we are still in Christ and nothing changes that. He does not receive us and then reject us every time we manifest weakness. If you can understand this, it will help you not only make your journey in God faster, but you will be able to enjoy it more.

Don’t have unrealistic expectations of yourself or others. I have discovered over the years that what I expect from myself is what I usually expect out of people also. In other words if I receive God’s mercy then I will be able to give mercy to others, but if I am demanding and never satisfied with myself I will be the same way with others. How we treat ourselves is often how we treat others. I believe we need to learn to be good to ourselves and yet not be self-centered. We should respect and value ourselves. We should know what we are good at and what we are not good at and realize that God’s strength is perfected in our weaknesses (see 2 Corinthians 12:9). We stress out over our faults and yet everyone has them. If we had no faults we would not need Jesus.

You can enjoy peace with yourself but you will have to pursue it. Make a decision that since you are with you all the time, you should like yourself. God created you and He does not make junk, so start seeing your strengths and stop staring at your weaknesses.

I believe that a lot of internal stress works its way out of us and becomes external stress. In other words, if we are upset internally, we’re much more likely to display upset when our external circumstances are troublesome. If you don’t like yourself, you won’t like much of anything. If we can relax about ourselves, then we can usually relax more about life in general. We all have a relationship with ourselves. It’s important to ask yourself what kind of relationship you have with
you
! Do you enjoy spending time alone? Can you handle being with yourself or do you always need people and noise to distract you from the way you feel inside? Are you able to forgive yourself (receive God’s forgiveness) when you make mistakes? Are you patient with yourself while God is changing you? How much time do you waste feeling guilty and condemned about things in the past? Do you compare yourself with other people and struggle trying to be like them? Do you feel the need to compete with others and try to be good at what they are good at? Do you let the world’s standard of looks and body image become your standard? Or, are you able to freely be the precious individual that God created you to be?

It is only when we ask these questions and answer them honestly that we can begin to understand what kind of relationship we have with ourselves.

Start meditating on this power thought: “I pursue peace with God, myself, and others.”

Think about It

Are you at peace with
you
?

Stress-free Relationships

Do any totally stress-free relationships exist? I doubt it, but there are definitely steps we can take that will improve all of our relationships and allow us to be at peace with others. I want to share four steps with you that I believe will help you reach the goal of enjoying peace with people.

Step 1.

Develop and maintain peace with God and peace with yourself. Then and only then will you begin to develop a mind-set that allows you to have peace with all types of people. Most of us can have peace with people who behave the way we want them to, but as I am sure you are aware, not many of those kinds of people are in our lives. It seems God purposely surrounds me with people who are not anything like what I would choose. Furthermore, it seems to me that He delights in doing so!

We often marry people who are the opposite of us and then spend years trying to change them, which never works and only frustrates us. Likewise we choose friends who are not like us and then struggle with them. We tell God that we want to love everybody, but when he surrounds us with all kinds of people, we want Him to make the ones that frustrate us disappear or we want Him to change them into what we would like them to be.

If we can manage to have balanced expectations we can increase our peace with people, so the first step is to make sure you don’t have unrealistic expectations.

Step 2.

Don’t expect people to be perfect, because they won’t be. People who have perfectionist tendencies have a real struggle in this area. It seems that the only way they can be satisfied with anything—including themselves—is when all things are perfect. When was the last time everything was perfect in your life? Obviously these people are destined to be frustrated and discontented most of the time. Don’t spend your life trying to make the impossible possible. People have faults and there is no way around it! No matter who you are in relationship with there will be times when they will disappoint you, so plan on forgiving frequently.

Think about It

Do you have unrealistic expectations and end up being disappointed because of them?

People will enjoy your company much more if you don’t pressure them to be something they can’t be. I like to be with people who know me—and love me anyway. They say that love is blind and I believe it is to some degree. My husband actually thinks some of my weaknesses are cute. For example I can be a bit snippy at times and instead of getting irritated, he usually just says, “There is that fire that I married you for.” In other words, my aggressive nature was one of the things that drew him to me, so why be bothered by it now? He recently gave me a card for Valentine’s Day that was a musical one. When I opened it, Johnny Cash was singing, “I fell into a burning ring of fire.” We both had a good laugh!

Like most men, Dave is almost never wrong and for years I thought my mission in life was to get him to admit that he was wrong. Now we actually laugh about it. He knows and so do I that it is impossible for anyone to be right all the time. His tendency not to admit his mistakes is just one of his “things.” It seems to be a “man thing.” From what my friends tell me, their husbands are the same way. I have lots of “things” of my own to deal with and so does everyone else. So why not lighten up and stop being overly exacting, demanding something we are probably not going to get?

Dave is an excellent driver, but he is quite impatient with other people who make mistakes while driving, especially me. If I try to drive and he rides, he has already corrected me three times before we get out of the driveway. For years I got upset about that and it caused lots of arguments and unpleasant road trips.

Now, I just don’t drive when he’s with me unless I have no other choice. Dave always assures me he is only trying to help me, and I assure him that I manage to get places all the time without his “help.” I am sure you recognize the conversation, but the good news is that although I would rather he not do it, I don’t let it steal my peace because I just know that is the way he is and it probably won’t change. It is one of his “things.” But, as I said, I have plenty of “things” of my own.

If you are going to have peace, you will have to pursue it. It won’t fall on you like ripe cherries falling off of a tree. You have to be “peaceful on purpose.”

Step 3.

Don’t expect everyone to be like you… because they aren’t. Discovering that we are each born with a temperament that is given to us by God, and that we are all uniquely different was quite an eye opener to me. Until then I just expected everyone to think and act as I did. Now, I know that sounds rather haughty but I simply did not know any better. I distinctly remember reading two different books on personality types and discovering that our personality is a combination of our temperament given at birth and the events of our life. For example, I was given a temperament that is decisive, strong, and straightforward. I have leadership qualities, want to be in charge, make quick decisions, am impatient, and always have definite opinions about what I want to do.

When I married Dave, I could not figure out what was wrong with him because he is more easygoing, takes more time to make decisions, is very patient, doesn’t need to be in charge, is easily satisfied, and many things just don’t matter to him. Not realizing that he was designed by God to be the way he was, I kept trying to get him to change and be more like me. Naturally, my attitude caused a lot of problems for us. He felt pressured and I was angry most of the time. God had given me exactly what I needed but I did not know it. Dave was strong where I was weak and I was strong where he was weak so the two of us made a great team. But, until I stopped trying to change him into what I thought he should be, we were both miserable.

We are what we are and although God keeps refining us to help us be a better us, we are still us! The day I realized I needed to accept and appreciate Dave for who he is changed the entire atmosphere in our home and relationship.

I deal with literally thousands of people, and had I not learned that we are all different I think I’d have lost my mind by now. At the very least I would have been frustrated all my life and been successful at making most people in my world feel rejected by me.

I highly recommend that you ask yourself how well you are able to accept people “as is.” Of course, we all need to change and improve in certain areas, but the truth is that only God can change people from the inside out. When we try to change one another, it just never works well. Even if someone does try to change because I am insisting that they do, they end up resenting me and feeling pressured. The best policy is to see the strengths people have and the benefit they are to you and leave the rest to God. Realizing that we all have weaknesses is also helpful. There just are no perfect people! Let’s learn to celebrate our differences rather than allowing them to be a point of disagreement and rejection.

We have four children and they are all different. Each one has things about them that I love and things I could easily do without, but they are all wonderful. I used to think I wanted everyone to be like me until I had two sons who are just like me. Then I realized that causes tension, too. The three of us all want to be the boss and as we know, that doesn’t work either. Everyone in our family is very opinionated and we all tend to think we are right, so that can add a bit more tension. In other words, our family is just like any other and yet we get along great, not because it is easy, but because we have decided to. You can do the same thing, but you will have to accept each person as an individual designed specifically by God and you must give them freedom to be who they are. Without that, peace with people is next to impossible.

Step 4.

Be an encourager—not a discourager. Everyone loves to be with people who celebrate and notice their strengths and choose to ignore their weaknesses. We all love to be encouraged and made to feel really good about ourselves, and we hate to be around negative, discouraging people who tend to be faultfinders.

I used to be the kind of person who wanted to at least mention things I saw as faults or mistakes. I prided myself in thinking I was generous enough to forgive but wanted to make sure people at least knew what I was forgiving them for. For example, I might say to Dave, “I turned the light out in your closet again.” In actuality I was still being discouraging by reminding him that he had not done what I wanted him to do and I had to do it for him. I had to learn that the best policy was to simply not say anything unless it was really necessary. It is a better thing to just turn the light off and hope someone will do the same for me when I leave one on. I realize that we need to train our children to do things certain ways and I am not suggesting that all training is discouraging, but when training becomes nagging, we have crossed a line that becomes a problem in relationships. The spirit of a person can be broken or bruised by excessive mentioning of faults.

The more we encourage people, the better they behave. In fact, compliments actually help people perform better, while nagging makes them behave worse. Choose a person who you would like to have a better relationship with and begin to aggressively encourage and compliment them. I believe you will be amazed at how much better they respond to you. Your first concern might be, “If I ignore their faults won’t they just take advantage of me?” That of course can happen, but it usually doesn’t. What frequently happens is that the person being encouraged has a change of heart and they work harder to please you than ever before. They are now doing it because they choose to and not because you are trying to force them.