Daily Application/
Discover Your Purpose
Topic: Perspectives
Have you ever saw something while walking or driving and come to find out the angle of your vision threw you off? You didn't really see what you thought you saw. Maybe you were looking at a property to purchase, but you needed to look at an aerial map and see how that property connected to the adjacent neighborhoods and freeways. Being too close, sometimes throws off our perspectives.
I keep a journal of my spiritual journey within an app on my phone where I can quickly type out thoughts, revelations, observations.
I like to journal because it allows me to go back and read my authentic, original non-edited thoughts and emotions. Journaling gives me an up-close perspective.
When I go back and read my journal, I am using it from another perspective as a reader, looking from a distance, like reviewing and an aerial map of the property. I am looking at my notes and connecting the spiritual journey. Re-reading my journal gives me an aerial perspective.
Journaling was a tool for my healing.
I encourage you to the journal. Write your immediate authentic thoughts, unedited. Short or long post - it doesn't matter. And, don't try to make the journal all pretty and grammatically correct. The purpose of journaling is not to write for someone else, but to write for you and discover what is hidden in patterns Journaling will give you a different perspectives of you - up close and from a distance.
Below is an excerpt from my book, Authentication Process (to be released later this year).
It took a while for me to understand what I now call the “authentication process”. Here’s how it unraveled: One day, after going through an issue at work, I went through my personal journal to re-read thoughts and lessons learned and started looking at the dates and I realized that over a two year period, I had experienced, for the most part, the same type of struggle at least three times. I was not experiencing new struggles; I was experiencing the same struggle, just rewrapped to look new.
During each struggle, my weakness would surface, but I wouldn’t notice that; I would only notice the struggle and how I thought something was being taken away from me. I was so out of order that in anger, I would go to God in prayer and ask Him to cast down my enemies and make them my footstools. I was totally wrong in my approach and eventually, I found out that my struggle was not the main issue, it was my weakness, I was allowing it to amplify and distort my perception.
If you are listening, the Holy Spirit is good about telling you what you did wrong and where you are to seek repentance. My weaknesses are pride and insecurity and as I began to look at my struggles differently, I began to see how I had made situations worse by allowing my weaknesses to rule me.
Struggles will come and go; the point is our responses to the situations. Each time I encounter a struggle, I should acknowledge my weaknesses and then align myself (how I respond) with God’s Word. I confess that I am a Believer, and then I must believe that my God can do all things. And when I confess that I will follow Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior, then I need to put Him in front of my struggles, not behind.
This lesson is not easy, it has been one of the most difficult lessons I have learned. And it has taken a lot out of me emotionally and spiritually. But, with each struggle, I have gotten better at recognizing my weaknesses and submitting my struggle to God.
More tomorrow.
Have a great day and start your journal.
Much Love,
Brinda Devine