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There’s a time
to leave things entirely to the Lord,
and a time to be more assertive. |
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Don’t be surprised
in emotionally charged
moments
if you start seeing things
through dark
glasses,
quite forgetting
the grace that surpasses.
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Accurate assessment requires renouncing
unchecked assumptions,
neither overlooking our strengths nor
overstating our weaknesses,
especially if we are inclined to condemn
ourselves with such damning words
as must, and should, and ought and got:
and sweeping statements as:
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‘I’ve got it all wrong again’ –
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Shame and self hatred,
twinned to bitter, sour anxiety
lie behind such dismal words,
and cause us to indulge deeply depressive thoughts
in a bid to block out painful feelings.
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Enable us to play the detective
and recognise
those times
when our thinking has gone
astray.
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May we be led by the Spirit
not driven by the Butcher.
Keep us from words that set us up to fail,
and help us to find ways to compensate
against those mad mood moments,
resisting and challenging the force-field
that certain thoughts impose around
themselves.
Do you really need to try and sort out
certain crises now,
or can you let them settle for twenty four
hours?
Even when circumstances are at their most
intense,
the Lord can still find ways to break in and
turn things round.
Thank You, Lord, that
when the pressure ramps up,
and I incline to the very worst scenarios,
You are never outflanked.
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Give me friends who will neither theorise
nor glamorise,
but speak the right blend of wise
words.
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We name
some of our biggest fears
and most
challenging circumstances
before You now.
SELAH
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You can’t give grace for hypothetical
conditions, Lord,
but You do deal with real issues each one in
its turn.
Don’t let me put up unnecessary shutters,
or miss out on genuine opportunities
just because I get so much completely wrong.
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No one event ever means that I have
‘arrived’ –
that would be fool’s gold –
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so help me be in step with You,
short, medium and long-term,
leaving certain issues on hold until another
time –
for the journey is always unfolding
backstage
as You lead us on from one stage to the
next.
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It’s not so much the fearful imaginings
themselves
that do the damage as the way we choose to
interpret them.
There are times when it is better just to
leave the thoughts alone,
or we end up trying to undo a gordian knot,
swatting flies tantalizingly out of reach. |
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The fact that this idea has maximized itself
persistently in our mind
does not mean it will cause the dreaded
thing to happen.
There is more profit by seeking to redeem
these obstinate apprehensions,
turning them into prayer
and daring to believe the very opposite.
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