Showing posts with label guilt. Show all posts

Friday, December 4, 2015

Things to Remember When You've Failed - ROSILIND JUKIC CHARISMA MAGAZINE

Have you failed or done something that you regret? Remember this. (iStockPhoto | Chepko)

4 Things to Remember When You've Failed

I'm sitting here typing with a heavy heart.

I've been carrying it around for a day and a half now ... it's kind of a heavy load to bear.

You see, yesterday I messed up.

I'm in a tough place momentarily because I need an operation that I have to wait for(please don't worry too much, I'll be OK. Really. I promise).

I thought I was going to have the operation Monday, but instead I spent the day having tests and getting medicated. My type-A personality was getting stomped all over because I wanted to get it done.

Don't waste time.

Just do what needs to be done and let me recover, because I have super-important things to do and this is just in the way.

Get me?

I am a doer. I am a get-'er-done-er type person. I don't saunter. I march.

The problem is that I wanted to march in and take control of a situation over which I have no control.

And that's where I messed up first.

I lost control over my schedule and that made me crazy.

I spent a whole day subjected to someone else's schedule, which to me equated wasting time. I actually laid there in the hospital bed counting how many hours I'd wasted on this "fool's errand." That made me super cray-cray!

And rather than allowing the peace of the Lord to calm my heart (because, let's face it, I was in a situation where someone else was in control. So I should have just sat back and enjoyed a day off.), I allowed the loss of control to not only steal my peace, but my joy and my testimony.

By the time I arrived home, I was not only in physical pain, but I was tired, cranky and bitter.

May I give you a piece of unsolicited advice?

When you are in pain, tired, cranky and bitter do not talk to anyone but Jesus.

Whenever we are these things, our tongue has a way of running away with itself and if the only person we talk to in that unbridled moment is Jesus, we at least still have our testimony and reputation intact.

Unfortunately, I had a moment of temporary amnesia and forgot to only talk to the Lord and I went on ...

wait for it ...

Facebook.

I can hear the collective groan right now.

Fortunately for me, the amnesia wasn't so bad that I posted to my wall. No, but to whom I posted was bad enough. In my anger and bitterness I made a few insulting remarks about the country I live in, shut the laptop and went to bed.

I wish I could erase that moment.

I really do.

It was beneath me to say what I said, and you're probably thinking, "Don't be so hard on yourself. We've all done it. People get over it and move on."

That's true.

But, the one who made the mistake sometimes has trouble moving on.

I'm that type of person.

I'm harder on myself than I am on anyone else I know.

I extend grace liberally to those around me, but I'm very stingy with myself. Everyone else is allowed second, third, fourth, 20th chances, but I have only one chance to get it right.

Zero tolerance for mistakes.

What do you do when you've messed up and you feel like you can't move on from it?

1. Realize that your guilt is probably really pride. My inability to grant myself grace is really pride. I have to be perfect. You know why? Because I have to be the best. I have to be 100 percent on my game all the time because I only want people to see the best of me now.

I know, I'm also very self-deprecating. It's an odd balancing act of sharing my past faults, "but look at me now. Now I'm perfect. I've moved on. Improved."

Not so much. Because yesterday I proved that I still haven't bridled my anger nor my tongue!

2. Realize that fruit takes time to grow. The fruit of the Spirit can't be ordered at a drive thru as you sail through life. "Ummmm ... yes, hello. I'd like an order of self-control, meekness and could you throw in some joy with that too? Thank you!"

Wouldn't that be nice?

But no. When you plant a tree, you don't get fruit on it for several years. And the first year, you may get just a few apples. It takes time, growth, pruning and a lot of care to grow fruit.

So we need to be patient with ourselves, because God is obviously patient with us. Otherwise, He'd have used a different illustration, such as vegetables. You can plant vegetables and have a harvest in just a matter of months, as opposed to fruit that takes years!

3. Forgiveness is extended in two directions. Sometimes the hardest person to forgive is yourself. Especially when you have high expectations of yourself. Sometimes it's easier to forgive others because you don't expect as much from them as you do yourself. But when you don't allow yourself to fail, you have trouble extending forgiveness to yourself when you do.

But refusal to extend forgiveness to yourself will drive you into a rut of self-condemnation.

As you rehearse your failure, you continue to heap condemnation on yourself until you stumble under the sheer magnitude of its load.

Let. It. Go.

Forgive yourself.

Surely others have forgiven you. And if they haven't, then that's an issue between God and them because God has forgiven you.

I'm writing this to myself tonight and already I feel better.

But the best thing we can do for ourselves when we've failed is:

4. Learn from our mistakes. Don't use your failure as a switch to constantly batter yourself, use your failure as a pointer to teach yourself a lesson.

Same tool, different purpose!

God wants to use our failures as launching pads, if we'll just surrender them into His hands.

I have.

Will you?

Rosilind Jukic, a Pacific Northwest native, is a missionary living in Croatia and married to her Bosnian hero. Together they live with their two active boys where she enjoys fruity candles, good coffee and a hot cup of herbal tea on a blustery fall evening. Her passion for writing led her to author her best-selling book The Missional Handbook. At A Little R & R she encourages women to find contentment in what God created them to be. You can also find her at Missional Call where she shares her passion for local and global missions. She can also be found at on a regular basis. You can follow her on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and Google +.

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Monday, September 14, 2015

How to Rid Yourself of Guilt Once and for All - Joyce Meyer

Freedom from guilt can birth an explosion of spiritual growth. (Lightstock )

How to Rid Yourself of Guilt Once and for All

Do you spend a lot of time feeling guilty? I did, as a result of being abused as a child.

I grew up believing something was wrong with me and that everything was my fault. And when you develop that kind of thinking during your childhood, it can torment you for a long time.

Guilt traps us and keeps us in the same place; much like a treadmill that keeps us going, but accomplishes nothing. Guilt is a trap that presses us down into our problems rather than lifting us out of them. And as long as we feel guilty about what we do wrong, we remain in that guilt and will not grow spiritually.

All of us make mistakes, and God knows that! No one can be perfect while in a fleshly body, but we can and must continue to grow spiritually regardless of where we are in our relationship with Christ. But in order to grow spiritually, we must first learn who we are in Christ.

By God's grace and mercy, when we are born again, God not only forgives us, He gives us His righteousness because the Holy Spirit comes to live inside us. We each have right standing with God legally because of the blood of Christ, and even though we sometimes still do things wrong, the ability to do what's right is also in us.

Galatians 5:22-23 (MEV) tells us: "But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, and self-control; against such there is no law."

God doesn't expect you to become something that He hasn't already equipped you with. At the moment you are born again, God comes to live inside of your heart. The "seeds" of His character are downloaded into your spirit, and just like any seeds that are planted with the intent to reap a harvest later on, there must be a cultivation period that happens over a long period of time.

You have everything you need to be who God wants you to be, and since God lives inside of you, this means the fruit of His Spirit is also inside you. And after you are born again, you will grow in Christ as you pursue Him daily.

2 Timothy 2:22 (MEV) tells us: "So flee youthful desires and pursue righteousness, faith, love, and peace, with those who call on the Lord out of a pure heart" (emphasis added).

The operative word here is "pursue." Pursue means to crave and go after something with all your mind and strength. Your relationship with God should not only be a Sunday morning thing. He is everything! In Him we live and move and have our being and without him we are nothing.

We rely on God's grace to help us do what's right every day. And if we try to do what God asks us to do without relying on Him to help us, we won't succeed because we need Him to do everything we need to do.

Philippians 2:12-13 (MEV) says: "Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, not only in my presence, but so much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling. For God is the One working in you, both to will and to do His good pleasure."

We don't work FOR our salvation to earn it, but we do work OUT our salvation. There's a difference! For example, working out for fitness takes time, discipline and commitment.

I have worked out three times a week for the last 10 years. When I started, I didn't have visible muscles. But now I do, because I'm committed to maintaining my fitness. In much the same way, spiritual growth is a workout, with the results developing over a time because of commitment and discipline. And we lean on God to help us every step of the way.

So keep moving forward, and don't be hard on yourself! You are holy, righteous, anointed, and completely forgiven. You're not where you need to be, but thank God you're not where you used to be. You're OK, and you're on your way.

Joyce Meyer is a New York Times bestselling author and founder of Joyce Meyer Ministries, Inc. She has authored 100 books, including Battlefield of the Mind and Get Your Hopes Up! (Hachette). She hosts the Enjoying Everyday Life radio and TV programs, which air on hundreds of stations worldwide. For more information, visitwww.joycemeyer.org.