theSideWalking

Strangely, this week has been the one for a lot of spiritual growth. You always think growth just happens. It's easy... but that's not true. In the beginning, a seedling can get all of its nutrients from the dirt it's engulfed in, but there comes a time when it must push up through the ground in order to receive light, water, and air. The plant grows stronger than before because it has to push through the dirt, just as in our spiritual growth, sometimes it's painful to push through all of the dirt in our lives in order that we might breathe and eat. If we've actually fought through some of the things in our life, we think that we've reached the finish line, but remember back to Kindergarten when you experimented with growing plants after they sprouted. You put one plant in the cupboard, one you put in a plastic bag, and the last one didn't receive any water. Every single one of the plants eventually died. In the same way you have to look after and care for plants, you must look after and care for your spirit.

Anyway, that's not the reason I sat down to write this post, but that just came to me.

Exercise: Stop for a second and write down a few different words to define yourself. Seriously... just do it. Here are mine:

Out-going
Weird
Awesome
Cynical
Creative

Belief: (n) Mental act and habit of placing trust or confidence in something accepted as true based on experience.

Those words you wrote down? Beliefs.
Some of those words you wrote down? Un-Godly beliefs.
What?

I sat down to write here about the last teaching Hannah gave those of us in Launch this past Thursday about unGodly beliefs. I thought it was going to be a lesson on things people believe about the Bible that are untrue... turned out to be completely different. Un-Godly beliefs are also acceptance of truth based on experience, but are gained through the misinterpretation of events and conversations. God can't give you what He doesn't have. Believing that you are stupid (because maybe your dad called you that) or cynical (because things never go right) or shy or always late or never good enough or anything negative about yourself is giving into un-Godly beliefs. The only way to stop believing in them is to break agreement (saying that's not who I am, that's not who God created me to be) with these things and especially pray about them. Listen to God refute them... normally He wouldn't just negate it saying, "You aren't stupid." In fact, He usually says positive things like, "I created you, and you are very clever." Things like that. It was very interesting to listen to the sermon.