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Better or Best

From: NotUnknown.com by Keith B.

“Lay down what’s good and find what’s best…” – Johnny Diaz, “Breathe”

A Bible study teacher pointed me to Acts 16 to answer this question: should we choose what is good for our lives, or allow God to show us what is best? Paul and Silas had set out on what Paul chose to do – preach in Asia. Key words here are “Paul chose.” In Acts 16:6, “the Holy Spirit prevented them from preaching the Word in Asia at the time.” God had in mind best, not good. When Paul failed to seek His will, God intervened through the Holy Spirit and prevented them from preaching in Asia.

I settled for what I thought best for most of my life. I didn’t view my decisions as settling. In my pride, I thought I knew best. Through my own brokenness, I believed the only person I could trust had to be me. So many others had failed me or didn’t really want to hear me. Or so I thought. Like Paul, I settled for what I believed good and right. That thinking led me to damaging choices. Damaging to myself and everyone around me.

Paul had a plan. He had his own plan. He chose to follow his plan to Asia, where he wanted. God’s plan differed from Paul’s. The Holy Spirit prevented Paul from stopping in Asia and gave him a dream as prodding to move on elsewhere. Paul listened. He paid attention to God’s direction and changed his plan from good to best. When I plan (I said when…because I can’t help myself), I can become convinced what I want is good and proceed. The question I have to ask, to make sure I have the right plan, is if this is a good thing right now.

Paul understood that his plan didn’t fit right now. A door closed. A window shut. I have moved forward with a job, continued in a relationship, decided to speak up in a way that I thought right; all of these happened after the door closed in my face or the opportunity ended. I charged through anyway, believing in my own judgment and discernment. Paul sought out God’s discernment in what to do next. He listened and asked the simple question: is this a good thing to the Lord?

Paul had a vision of a man from Macedonia calling out for help. Macedonia didn’t fit in Paul’s original plan. My plan for restoration in my marriage and family after my affair became known involved repentance and amends. Nowhere in my plans did full disclosure show up. God revealed to me over and over the necessity for honesty and transparency as the building blocks for healing. I didn’t want to hear that and slipped back into my old life of lies and sexual sin. After the vision of the man calling from Macedonia, Paul immediately obeyed and set sail for Macedonia. He obeyed, answering the simple question: what is the last thing the Lord convicted me to do?

Paul started teaching and preaching in Macedonia. He had few followers. People denounced him, threw him in prison, beat him. He didn’t immediately recognize the results of his obedience. After I finally obeyed, followed through with full disclosure of my years of deception to my wife, our marriage didn’t magically heal. The first few months meant separate rooms, anger, yelling, threats. I knew I had obeyed God, but I wondered why I even bothered. Paul continued and slowly realized the fruits of God’s direction. He reaffirmed his commitment by asking the question: is my effort backed by the hand of the Lord and bearing fruit of the Spirit?

Laying down what’s good and finding what’s best doesn’t come easy for me. My immediate response seems to skew toward what’s the least painful or difficult or what fits my own view. However, I have chosen to seek what’s best in my life. After walking through my third step, and turning my life and will over to the care of God, I find opportunities to seek His direction in how to daily turn my will over to Him. Thanks to Paul, I have a great example of how to find what’s best.

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Porn Rapes The Mind

Originally posted at: https://refugenortheast.wordpress.com/2016/06/06/porn-rapes-the-mind-2/

by Steven

The other day I was asked to pray for a young child who came across some pornography on the internet. The curiosity lasted about two hours, but that was enough time for the enemy to set the hook. The good thing is the child did tell his parents what he did and so hopefully he will be able to get some help. Porn rapes the mind and will destroy not only an adult but the emotional and mental well being of a child. An addiction to pornography is chemically nearly identical to a heroin addiction. Let that sink in for a little while. A porn addiction is chemically identical to a heroin addiction. The human brain was not designed to handle the major dose of chemicals the brain unleashes when one is viewing pornography. Our biggest sexual organ is our brain, and studies have shown there is damage done to the brain and the brain’s chemistry is altered when one is exposed to pornography. Over time, one will become addicted to their own brain chemistry. Each time the brain receives a major dose of chemicals over time this will lead to future cravings. Dr. Norman Doidge writes in The Brain That Changes Itself, (From the Porn Circuit, by Sam Black) “human beings exhibit an extraordinary degree of sexual plasticity compared with other creatures. By “plasticity” he means that our brains and our sexuality are molded by our experiences, interactions, and other means of learning, which is why people vary in what they say, is attractive or what turns them on. The brain actually creates neural pathways that label a specific type of person or activity as arousing.” Addictions are learned, Sam Black writes, “With porn people have taught their brains that it is arousing.” So what are some of the chemicals that are released when one is viewing pornography? Dopamine, Testosterone, Norepinephrine, and Oxytocin are released.

Dopamine is the “I want it” neurotransmitter. Dopamine helps us to focus our attention on a certain task when this chemical is released it makes us feel good. It is also a major player with our memory; it helps us to recall what is important in our environment and it helps us to remember the appropriate response to a certain stimulus. Testosterone is the “male hormone,” and is dramatically increases during sexual arousal and desire. When the brain picks up on sexual cues, it increases testosterone. Norepinephrine is a neurotransmitter normally associated with stress and the fight-or-flight response. However, it also works as a hormone for sexual arousal and sexual memory, in which it helps brand emotional experiences in our minds. Oxytocin is a bonding hormone and is released during physical touch and at a climax. For those who struggle with porn, this hormone is binding a person to an image, video or situation and not their spouse. Over time, the brain will start to rewire itself for the addiction and will start to create new neuropath ways in the brain. What the brain is doing is creating a super highway for these chemicals, and the body will start to crave these chemicals. So over time, the body will need more and more to get high, so one normally will have to start looking for more extreme porn, or sex acts to get the high they are looking for. This is why the internet is so dangerous; you can never run out of images. For those who struggle with drugs, they are going to eventually run out of their drug of choice and start to come off the high, not the one struggling with porn. They have an unlimited supply of images to keep the high going. Porn will rape one’s mind, and this is why it is so dangerous for children to get hooked at an early age. Parents have to take precautions to protect their children and remember filters cannot block everything out. When parents don’t train their children or protect their children, their little brains are raped and an addiction has started.

 

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New 3-Day Intensive Program in San Antonio

I’m pleased to announce the opening of our new San Antonio office. Take 2 Counseling (https://www.take2counseling.com) has just opened and is offering the same treatment model that we offer in Houston and in the Canadian Rockies.

Dr. Chris Gulde and Karen Gulde are two outstanding therapists who bring a wealth of experience and knowledge to this new practice. Both left very successful careers (as a physician and an attorney, respectively) to devote the rest of their lives to helping sex addicts get free, partners heal, and relationships be restored.
Dr. Chris Gulde is a CSAT. Karen Gulde is an ATPBS (Advanced Training in Problematic Sexual Behaviors). Additionally, Karen has received certification in treating partner trauma by APSATS.
Both Chris and Karen are certified in Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT) and have developed a trademarked couples treatment model called R.E.A.L. (Reconnecting with Empathy,
Awareness, and Love) that has been used with couples who have addressed other issues such as addiction and still find it difficult to connect and reestablish intimacy.
Congratulations Chris and Karen on your new practice.
For more information, please visit them at www.https://www.take2counseling.com.
Dr. Magness
   
 Hope & Freedom specializes in Three-Day Intensives for Couples to lead toward the restoration of the relationship. Each Intensive is custom tailored to the needs of the couple. Only one couple will be present and I will personally conduct your Intensive.
For more information and to apply for acceptance in this program…

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How our Thought Life Affects our Health and Wellbeing

Originally posted at: https://sundayeveryday.me/2016/05/23/our-thought-life-affects-our-health-and-wellbeing/

by Lisa Hunt-Wotton

Depression is often the result of over thinking, our minds create problems that initially didn’t exist.

We exercise little discipline regarding the negative thoughts that run round and round in our heads, causing us anxiety and fear.  We don’t stop long enough  to realise that these thoughts are negative, they just are.

What if, I could have, I should have, I didn’t, if only and the list of toxic thoughts goes on and on.

“Summing it all up, friends, I’d say you’ll do best by filling your minds and meditating on things true, noble, reputable, authentic, compelling, gracious—the best, not the worst; the beautiful, not the ugly; things to praise, not things to curse.

Put into practice what you learned from me, what you heard and saw and realized. Do that, and God, who makes everything work together, will work you into his most excellent harmonies” (Phil 4:8 The Message Bible).

The apostle Paul wrote this to the Philippians over 2000 years ago.  The ancients knew that meditating on good and noble thoughts were the best thing for our health and for us to live in harmony.

Today  I want us to understand the power of our thoughts and know that it is possible to change and renew our minds. Paul tells us to “Think on these thing” – what is good, pure, beautiful, noble, reputable.  It is a spiritual discipline that we must all take time to learn to master.  It is a spiritual discipline that has a powerful effect on our  emotional and physical health.  Dr Caroline Leaf is a cognitive neuroscientist with a PhD in Communication Pathology specializing in Neuropsychology, teaches on toxic thought life.  This is what she says:

75% to 95% of the illnesses that plague us today are a direct result of our thought life. What we think about affects us physically and emotionally. It’s an epidemic of toxic emotions.

The average person has over 30,000 thoughts a day. Through an uncontrolled thought life, we create the conditions for illness; we make ourselves sick! Research shows that fear, all on its own, triggers more than 1,400 known physical and chemical responses and activates more than 30 different hormones.

There are INTELLECTUAL and MEDICAL reasons to FORGIVE!

Toxic waste generated by toxic thoughts causes the following illnesses: diabetes, cancer, asthma, skin problems and allergies to name just a few. Consciously control your thought life and start to detox your brain!

Medical research increasingly points to the fact that thinking and consciously controlling your thought life is one of the best ways, if not the best way of detoxing your brain. It allows you to get rid of those toxic thoughts and emotions that can consume and control your mind.

Change in your thinking is essential to detox the brain. Consciously controlling your thought life means not letting thoughts rampage through your mind. It means learning to engage interactively with every single thought that you have, and to analyze it before you decide either to accept or reject it” (http://drleaf.com/about/toxic-thoughts/).

Toxic thinking literally ‘wears down’ the brain and the rest of the body.

The Institute of Heartmath discusses an experiment titled “Local and nonlocal effects of coherent heart frequencies on Conformational Changes of DNA.” This study showed that thinking and feeling anger, fear and frustration caused DNA to change shape according to thoughts (that is thoughts with their intertwined feelings). T

The DNA responded by tightening up, becoming shorter and switching off many DNA codes, which reduced quality expression:

We will feel ‘shut down” by negative emotions and our body feels this too. What was really exciting about this study is the fact that the negative “shut down” or poor quality of the DNA codes was reversed with feelings of love, joy, appreciation and gratitude!

The researchers also found that HIV positive patients with these positive thoughts and feelings had 300,000 times the resistance!

A lot of our thinking is dominated by situations and people that we cannot forgive.   About two-thirds of the teaching of Jesus centred around forgiveness.  Richard Rohr says that:

“One of the most powerful of human experiences is to give or to receive forgiveness…when we forgive, we choose the goodness of the other over their faults, we experience Gods forgiveness…and we also experience our own goodness…this is a coming together of power, both human and divine”.

Throughout the next week why don’t you take the time to record your negative thoughts.  Write them out on a post it note and put it in a private place.  Next to the negative thought write out a positive or good thought and begin to rewire your brain.  Take the toxic thoughts and replace them with a good or noble thought.

Maybe you need to weigh up the choice to forgive, to release yourself and the other person from your pain.

Make the choice now to be free from these negative thoughts that are causing toxic reactions in your emotions and in your body.

Love Lisa.

About Dr. Leaf

Dr. Caroline Leaf is a cognitive neuroscientist with a PhD in Communication Pathology specializing in Neuropsychology. Since the early 1980‘s she has studied and researched  the Mind-Brain connection.  During her years in clinical practice as a Communication  Pathologist she developed tools and processes that help people develop and change their thinking and subsequent behavior. Her scientific Science of Thought techniques  have transformed the lives of patients with Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI), learning disabilities, emotional traumas and released the potential of thousands of young students and adults.

Change in your thinking is essential to detox the brain. Consciously controlling your thought life means not letting thoughts rampage through your mind. It means learning to engage interactively with every single thought that you have, and to analyze it before you decide either to accept or reject it.

If the work here is meaningful to you, you can partner with me in a very real way through Patreon.com.

Patreon allows me to get support for the work that I do on this blog.    Patreon allows people to financially pledge to support artists, writers, musicians, and other creative people. Sunday Everyday has been on line since the first of February 2015.  Since that time I have been doing this in a volunteer capacity.  For the blog to continue I need your support.  You may want to give the amount you would spend on a coffee and muffin once a month or you may wish to pledge $50.00 a month or more.  Every bit helps.

Please help support my ministry and magnify my voice by pledging.

Thanks for considering.

Love Lisa