When I was still an infant in my stand, I did not know how to stand. Haha. I had no idea. I just knew that this was what God called me to and to wait for His Promise to be fulfilled.
After a few months of receiving my calling, I met a seasoned stander (virtually). I remember our first conversation, she said “Mary, I would love to help you and guide you in standing because it’s probably going to be the most toughest season of your life. I do have a few rules that I need you to abide by if we are going to continue. 1) No pity parties. 2) Do not talk bad about your husband, the other woman, or your circumstances. and 3) whatever comes out of your tongue, make sure you are edifying others and glorifying God with your speech.”
These rules seemed nearly impossible for me. These are what my days consisted of at that time: feeling bad for myself and my daughter, constantly thinking about my husband and the other woman and what they were doing, and I definitely did not know God enough to know how I can CONSTANTLY edify and glorify Him without telling people my circumstance.
This post is all about how powerful the speech is that comes from your mouth and how to combat negative feelings and thoughts that would eventually come out from the mouth.
“You brood of vipers! How can you speak good, when you are evil? For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks.” -Matthew 12:34
The Power of the Tongue
Fast forward to now, 5 years later: I understand what the importance is of the power of the tongue, the importance of edifying and glorifying the Lord and others with my speech.
“Death and Life are in the power of the tongue, and those who love it will eat its fruits.” -Proverbs 18:21.
Let’s dive into this a little deeper:
When we use our speech to glorify God, there is no room to glorify Satan.
What do I mean by that? When you constantly are praising God with your speech, you start believing and feeling His goodness and faithfulness. So much so that there is no room to feed the lies that the enemy is throwing at you; instead, your thoughts become aligned with Christ.
I realize that when I was talking and thinking negatively, my mind would be filled with negativity and it would set me in a pity party.
“Fix your thoughts on what is true, and honorable, and right, and pure, and lovely, and admirable. Think about things that are excellent and worthy of praise.” – Philippians 4:8.
So if the Word tell us this, then we ought to try it since it’s for our own benefit.
So these are the ways that I overcame negative feelings/thoughts and learned to glorify the Lord in everything I say:
Journaling
Instead of talking with someone about all my problems, I would write them down.
(I know, talking it over with someone is therapeutic, I get it) HOWEVER the difference between writing it out and talking it out is that when you write out your thoughts and feelings, you can quickly transition and turn everything to POSITIVE whereas when you speak to someone, you end up continuing the conversation negatively since the person on the receiving end will always have a response.
So what I would do when I journal is I would document the circumstance and write it down as a narrative separating my own personal thoughts about it but I would include my emotions toward this circumstance.
Many times, I find that the Holy Spirit will speak to me and give me promptings of what perspective to think instead in this difficult situation. After I have written everything I wanted down. I would write out all the things that I am thankful to God for. I would speak to Him through my journal and just pour out my heart to Him while list out my many blessings.
At the end of the journaling session, it usually leaves me feeling comforted and held and ready to face my circumstance again with a joyful heart. I cleared my mind out of any negative clutter and instead gave thanks and praise instead.
Praise and Worship
When the storm rages, especially in my house or within me, I turn the worship music on FULL BLAST!
It saturates our hearts (not just mine but also my daughter’s) to praise God instead, in the middle of the storm. Not only were my spirits lifted but my environment, my home seemed to have lifted its heavy, gloomy air.
When you worship, there is no room for pity. When you worship, you are telling and showing Satan that you are victorious because Christ is already victorious.
Psalm 59:16 – “But I will sing of Your strength; I will sing aloud of Your steadfast love in the morning. For You have been to me a fortress and a refuge in the day of my distress.”
When you worship, you are inviting God’s presence into the space and into your circumstances. And when God is present, the enemy must flee!
Bible Verses
I would write bible verses that jumped out at me or that spoke to me in my journal and every time the storm raged, I would go back and read all those verses.
A verse or a portion of scripture that the Holy Spirit brings to your attention is called a Rhema Word.
Speak those rhema words especially into your situation. What you are doing when you do this is speaking God’s word over your situation.
There is immense power in the word of God. You are inviting God into your situation when you pray over your situation and speak the Word over it.
Isaiah 55:11 says “so is my word that goes out from my mouth: It will not return to me empty, but will accomplish that I desire and achieve the purpose for which I sent it”.
God is true to His promises, so when you speak the Truth back to Him, He will accomplish it – it is just a matter of waiting for the promises to be fulfilled.
By applying these ways constantly in my day to day life: writing out my thoughts and replacing them with a heart of gratitude, saturating my heart and environment with worship songs and applying Bible verses into my situation – I had no room to speak negatively nor think negatively about my situation.
I was able to set my thoughts on things above.
Philippians 4:8 states “Finally, brethren, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable, if anything is excellent or praiseworthy, thinkg about such things”.
Hopefully this has helped as your continue your standing journey. I would love to hear of your progress as you continue to stand in the gap for your spouse.
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