Feed Your Inner Life
A profound sense of security and peace can be ours if we practice a few spiritual principles. If we feed our inner life, our spirit, our outer life will reflect that fact. This involves entering into a relationship with God in a manner that brings us moral and circumstantial peace.
Contemplate - It starts with experiencing God's love. We must spend time contemplating the nature of God's love, making it personal. Take everything that concerns you to Him, as to a friend. Let Him sooth your pain and deal with your fears and complaints.
Acceptance - Seeing God's love inspires trust, which must then be put into action. Surrender: place yourself in His care. Then take hold of the benefits of that. Take hold of the fact that He is now orchestrating all your circumstances for good, bringing you security, support, meaning, purpose, and growth.
Rest, or abide in God's love. We must avoid becoming preoccupied by doing. Let God's love be the filter through which you see life. Remember, seeking to follow God can bring out the dark side of our morality, feeling pressured and judged by the standards we use as guides to our growth. The rigidity of many people's conscience is counterproductive. As choices come, see them in the context of grace. Here we must chose to live in a new relational moral atmosphere, experiencing God's forgiveness, acceptance, understanding, compassion, and mercy as they relate to our actions and failures.
Walk in the light.
1. Deal with the big issues. It is these that make you feel
bad about yourself and disturb your peace. God will support those choices. However,
let grace allow you to avoid perfectionism. Don't sweat the smaller stuff.
2. Feed your mind with the positive and beautiful. Much of what is available
on TV and other media sources does not foster healthy attitudes.
3. Resist negative thinking and actions - anger, worry, resentment, criticism,
self-pity, and actions that make you feel "less than". Counter them
with the appropriate positive spiritual perspective.
4. Love is an upper. It can pick up your day when things go flat. Kindness has
a positive affect on both the recipient and the giver. When the opportunity
arises, share the grace you have experienced.
5. Seek to live wisely, with a healthy and uplifting value system.
6. Appropriate boundaries promote good relationships (limits to the behavior
you will accept from others).
7. Feelings - We must use our will to fight doubt and negativity and to take
hold of the truths presented here. Our feelings vacillate. Negative thoughts
and feelings are like waves. They will pass if we stand firm. If we don't, we
will become demoralized by doubt, anxiety and self-pity.
8. When down, get moving, do something productive. It will have a positive affect
on you and turn your mind from your negative feelings.
A few other issues.
· We must let life bring us choices. Trying to change our lives by focusing
on doing right is counterproductive. We must shift our minds to God's love and
care and then accept our circumstances. This will bring us peace.
· Keep a positive perspective. Healthy attitudes motivate healthy actions.
Your values then, can simply be used like tools, as the situation calls for
them.
· God states that He will guide us. Believe that. If your path is consistent
with the principles of goodness, listen to your passion, follow your heart.
God directs us through these. If you are not sure, it's simple, ask for further
guidance.
· We tend to think that God will make everything rosy in our lives. However,
God uses our negative circumstances to teach and bring us insight into things
we need to deal with spiritually. We can then learn new perspectives that will
allow us to rise above and/or deal with our problems in a healthy fashion.