Tuesday, December 7, 2010

#113 - Don't STAY Down!

Good morning! We have a full morning and a full day! The boy gets to go play today with his friend Harper! Hip Hip Horray! :) This will be a first for the boy and for mama! I will be going to have lunch with a friend & mentor which I'm excited about! Praise the Lord! Today's Word was much needed and refreshing, I think it will speak to a lot of you as well, so let's get started. 
Psalm 37:3-7a - Trust (lean on, rely on, and be confident) in the Lord and do good; so shall you dwell in the land and feed surely on His faithfulness, and truly you shall be fed.
    4Delight yourself also in the Lord, and He will give you the desires and secret petitions of your heart.
    5Commit your way to the Lord [roll and repose each care of your load on Him]; trust (lean on, rely on, and be confident) also in Him and He will bring it to pass.
    6And He will make your uprightness and right standing with God go forth as the light, and your justice and right as [the shining sun of] the noonday.
    7Be still and rest in the Lord; wait for Him and patiently lean yourself upon Him...
Well, let me set the stage of this mornings devotion. Yesterday, things were going well... all until the evening. Daddy was with the boy, and I teach/coach/lead a class on Monday nights on Health & Fitness. Well... one thing led to another with my evening, what should be a great night because Mama is kind of "off duty" and free to do things by myself after my class, turned into a not so great evening. It all started with thoughts that led to some frustrations. It began something like this..... the need to make decisions of Christmas traditions started coming, thoughts about what we want with our "family" Christmas, how to make Jesus the most important and most evident reason why we celebrate Christmas, gifts, shopping, money, people that I would like to buy presents for, etc, etc, etc. During this spiral of thoughts it was like the devil was just reeling me in, tightening and tightening, causing me to dwell on things that made me not happy. I found myself in Dicks Sporting Goods looking at my favorite brand, Nike, and I was literally almost crying. Just from a series of thoughts. Which, since I was just dwelling on "myself" and "my thoughts" made me completely ineffective in the marketplace. "Ineffective?" You ask. How did that make me ineffective? Well, I know that I am called to be a light in a dark place. I am called to draw people to the light. Draw people to the solution. And I believe I have the solution. I have what people are looking for! Not only from a business perspective for those people who are needing and praying for a way to bring in an additional income stream, but most importantly I have to offer the KING OF KINGS to those who may not know Him. 


So, here I am driving home. You tell me if you have done this before... I'm driving home, feeling bad. Dwelling on things that made me feel even more depressed, and recognized what was going on. I very seldomly allow negative thoughts to penetrate my mind for long, and I realized these thoughts had been continuing. I then began to confess outloud my goals. I have "confessions" that I speak several times a day, and I know that you can not defeat thoughts with thoughts, you can only defeat thoughts with WORDS. (that's worth writing down!) You can not defeat thoughts with thoughts, you can ONLY defeat thoughts with WORDS! So I began confessing my goals. Confessing my affirmations. Confessing the WORD over my life. And after I finished doing it once, I did it again with more enthusiasm. I would like to say that I kept doing that... but I did it maybe several times, then I went back to driving with my thoughts. Negative started weighing me down again. My first thought was, "Who can I call that would be able to encourage me?" Then, from within my spirit, I heard, "Encourage yourself in the Lord." I know that as a believer we can not always count on someone else to "lift us up," sometimes we need to know how to encourage ourself in the Lord. (Don't get me wrong, I'm all about friends and positive people to speak into our lives, and I have them.) This time, I knew it was not a job for someone else. I knew that I needed to encourage myself in the Lord. I had remembered reading a few places in the Bible how to do that, praying in the Spirit, verbally thanking God for all He has done, spending time in Praise & Worship.... all of these things wage WAR against the enemy. 


When I got home, I honestly just wanted the day to be over. I wanted a new day. I didn't go to bed "happy." I was ready for the day to end. Then, this morning when I woke up the first thing that I wrote in my journal that I felt was directed by the Holy Spirit was, "Start over today." Last night, while I was out and even when I got home, I had felt like discouragement had made me loose my "Umph" about life. It got my eyes off of what was important. The Word today is such a perfect reminder! Let's look at it again! "Roll each care on Him" - "Delight yourself in the Lord and HE will give you the desires and secret petitions of your heart!" PRAISE THE LORD! 


So, what did I do? I began to do just that. I began to list out each care I was rolling over to the Lord. "Lord, I roll this care on you........ I roll this care on you....... I roll this care on you.......... " And the list went on and on. I wrote it and I did it out loud! I rolled my dreams, my future, my desires, my cares, even my secret desires, I ROLLED them onto the Lord. Then I took a few minutes to listen.... One thing that the Holy Spirit told me that was pretty interesting was this, "Satan will try to use any tactic to get you down. He plays dirty & doesn't play fair. He will attack you at your weakness, not at your strength. He wants to keep you down long enough that you will stay down. To paralyze you, like a lame animal not able to move. You did right by encouraging yourself in Me. I will breathe life into you. I will remind you of what is true." 


Today, I encourage you.... don't let the Christmas obligations get the best of you. Don't let those things discourage or get you down. Whether it be shopping, presents, parties, family, friends.... Encourage yourself in the Lord. Remember that the true focus is Jesus. But also, keep this promise in front of you. Delight yourself in the Lord and HE will give you the desires and secret petitions of your heart! HE WILL DO IT! The best is still coming! God has GREAT things in store for you! He has GREAT Blessings in store for you! ROLL EACH CARE onto Him and live in joy. Live a life blessing others and being a light. God has VERY VERY Great things in store for you! Defeat Satan! Don't let him get you or keep you down. Encourage yourself in the Lord! SING SING SING! PRAISE PRAISE PRAISE! THANK THANK THANK! 


I am STARTING OVER TODAY and you can too! 


XOXO,
        Amy J 

3 comments:

Kimberly Bestul said...

oh how i <3 u AJ!!! thx for sharing...i needed this VERY much to start my day.

<3 u!!!

Amy J. McCart said...

Amen Kimmi! :)
Love you!

Amy J

Jo Ann said...

Ditto to Kimmi's comments! This was soooo very needed today! Our God is so amazing and I thank you again for your devotion to Him and your transparency. There are very few people today who have the strength or confidence in themselves, through Christ, to be able to share those most "hidden" feelings. It is so wonderful how He speaks to me through you with many things that I have not listened to when He told me. He knows my trust in you, Amy, and it is a confirmation to me that I did hear Him say what you are now saying. I hope that makes sense. No matter how I reword it I still have to try to untangle it but I know you will understand what I'm trying to say.

Now, I'm going to get my day started over with the "new" attitude! Gonna be rolling those cares on my Lord today! Praise Him!

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