"Follow Your Heart" is a LIE

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ZZZzzzz...

The alarm went off for twenty minutes this morning before I heard it. I hit snooze. For an hour, every nine minutes that alarm went off. Ever nine minutes I hit snooze once more. 

I was tired. Still am, but I have lots to do. I have spent the last two hours catching up on morning chores and now, I am at least three hours behind my day. 

This morning I was a serial snoozer. This is a dangerous thing to be. 

But isn't that just human nature? To put off all the things we know we need to do, just for a few more minutes of something else? A few more minutes of fun, of sleep. or of peace? 

But we don't just apply this habit to our sleeping patterns, or at least I don't. No, I run the risk of applying it to my spiritual life too. All too often I hear God telling me to do something about an attitude or a habit. My response is too often a lazy one. I hit the spiritual snooze button. 

I know I have to eventually get to it, but I do not want to deal with the pain of doing it right now. And sometimes there is pain when we obey. 

Me versus God

The truth is no one likes the process of self-discipline, but the concept is even more strenuous when you add in God's discipline. I want to get up at eight, which is hard enough for me at times. God wants me up at five. I want to have a second portion of dinner (hey, I am a great cook!) and God wants me to cut the first portion in half. These may seem like self-discipline issues, but they are really heart issues.

"Heart Issues" is a phrase I used to hate to hear. It sounded so judgmental coming from pastors and teachers, but in reality, if we are ill in our physical body, don't we want to know what the root problem is? Wouldn't we want to fix that? 

So I have to apply the same logic to my spiritual life. I have to go to the "heart" of my issues. I have to deal with my disobedience and rebellion. 

That is what it is and it isn't easy or pretty to say. Like an alcoholic in an AA meeting I feel like I should stand up and say, "Hi, my name is Dayna, and I have a rebellion problem." 

The battle of self-will versus God's will has been going on since Adam and Eve sinned in the garden, but I somehow isolate myself and think it is just a "Dayna" thing. This rebellion may manifest itself in small ways, but with big and sometimes dire consequences. 

After all, I did not just wake up one day overweight battling health problems because I hit a snooze once or had a second helping a few times. No, I ended up this way because I served myself for years instead of serving God. 

I am in Recovery (TWEET THAT)

The remedy is not easy. When I perfect it, I will let you know. Until then, I will stay on my face repenting, trying again, and choosing to let God lead me. Recovering the life He means me to have, not the one I buildt for myself. 

I want the stuff that will last: treasure that remains. Burn off the dross and let my life be made to be a perfect reflection of You Lord. 

"A good man out of the good treasure of the heart bringeth forth good things: and an evil man out of the evil treasure bringeth forth evil things." Matthew 12:35 KJV

Father, hear my cry. My heart is wicked and it always chooses itself. "Follow your heart" is a lie I have believed for too long, and I know that there is no one and nothing I should follow more than you. Forgive me for being stiff necked and insisting on doing things my way. Help me to be obedient the first time you tell me something. Help me to abandon myself and lean into you with all I am. I choose you over my own desires. You are worth it all. In Jesus name. Let it be. 

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Do you have a bad habit God is leading you to break? 

How Jeff Goins Kicked This Writer's Butt

Cover Art Copyright owned by Author

I have written before about my struggles with writing, about my insecurities with creating and you, my dear readers have been there every step of the way. So too has my “mentor”, Jeff Goins. 

As a frequent reader of his blog and follower on Twitter, I recently got asked by Jeff to read his upcoming eBook You are a Writer (So Start Acting like One) and I counted it a privilege to do so. 

You are a Writer (So Start Acting like One) took me an emotional and cerebral roller coaster. I have struggled with writing and since starting a blog I have waged an internal battle with myself over “issues” both large and small. 

This book is ingenious in its simplicity and profound in its insight into the writer's mind. Jeff Goins hits ever one of the issues I have ever had as a writer. I felt inspired, corrected, encouraged and empowered all at the same time. 

Moments in this book had me shouting out loud and after lesson’s like “Stop writing for accolades and start writing for passion”, or “kill the excuses and start writing” I have no reason to not develop my talent and share my gift with the world. 

Jeff Goins makes better writers because he gives us tools, he kicks our collective whiny butts and he speaks from experience. This is a must read for every writer! 

Jeff writes, “Without the Medici family, Michelangelo wouldn't have painted the Sistine Chapel.” Without Jeff Goins, I wouldn’t still be doing this “writing” thing. I would not be able to proudly, boldly, and truthfully say, “I am a writer”. 

For me, this book will join the ranks of Jon Acuff’s Quitter and Robert Masello's Robert’s Rules of Writing as one of the most influential self-help books of my life. 

The highlight for me is the personal inspirations I have drawn from You are a Writer (So Start Acting like One). Soon, this inspiration will be translated into changes here, in this blog, and I cannot wait to show you all I have learned. 

If you have a dream to write, or any other artistic and creative pursuit, this book is for you. Please, go to Amazon (affiliate site) and buy You are a Writer (So Start Acting like One)! 

To find out more about the author, visit goinswriter.com or follow Jeff on Twitter at https://twitter.com/#!/JeffGoins and to purchase his books go to DiscoverShopping.

Have you ever read a book that inspired you? 

Self Help 101? No thank you!

Have you ever gotten in your own way before? It is easy to answer this question but hard to answer the next one; Why? Why do we get in our own way?

Just throwing this out there, but it may be because we try to do things on our own.  I don’t know about you, but I get tired of trying to be everything I am “supposed” to be all of the time. I get wrapped up in the peer pressure of the church and of the world and both can be dangerous things. We need to stop comparing ourselves to one another and JUST FOLLOW CHRIST!

Whoa, you say, there is no peer pressure in the church….to that I ask where do you go to church, because I want to go there.  Look, people are people, no matter where they are, everyone is broken: otherwise we wouldn’t need Jesus!

I have always considered myself to be a bit of a black sheep when it came to everything, my family, my church, my life in Christ. This negative view of myself has allowed me to wrongly excuse my poor choices in life and only in the light of Christ do I begin to see this stronghold for what it is: it is a lie.

2 Corinthians 10:4 (NLT)

We use God’s mighty weapons, not worldly weapons, to knock down the strongholds of human reasoning and to destroy false arguments. 

I am the righteousness of God in Christ, I am the head and not the tail, I rejoice because God is not a respecter of persons and He has plans for me. These words, ones written in the Bible, must become my ammunition in my battle against lies. These words must become my words, they must build my faith. They must carry more weight in my life than the lies I believed because someone of authority once told me a falsehood.

You are not worthless, you are not forgotten, you are not just like your deadbeat father, or destined to be a failure. Whoever told you these lies, well, they are wrong!  And it is time to get free of the strongholds these lies created in you.

One of the lies I have believed is that I have to always “be” a certain way now that I am a Christian. While it is true we strive for the “high Calling” of God perfection is not an option for me, because I am human. Here is another lie: I grew up thinking I was constantly a disappointment to God because the other people in my life seemed to be disappointed in me so often. If it was so impossible to please my dad, how could I ever please God?  The truth is I do not frustrate the grace of God. The truth is God loves me, and His grace is enough. The truth is God sings over me, HE is not waiting with a big stick to knock me over the head whenever I fall short.

We need to grab those things that exalt themselves higher than God in our lives, those lies we believe because our parents always said, or because we always thought a certain way, and bring them down! Pull down those strongholds by building up our faith. Asserting who we are in Christ is the only way to become free of the lies about ourselves that we believed until now. This will allow us to get out of our own way, and become more like Christ and less like that black sheep. After all, we are HIS sheep and we follow HIS voice!

This is not what I intended to write today. This is not what I studied last night and it is not where I thought God wanted to go when I first sat down at this keyboard. But I know that this is the only thing I could say right now. It was like a groaning in my spirit. I have believed so many lies before, I still struggle with the walls these lies erected between me and God. I want them torn down! I want to live in the freedom of God’s grace. I want to know the truth because it is not just truth that sets me free, BUT THE TRUTH I KNOW that sets me free. Don’t you want the same? Doesn’t your spirit cry out in the wilderness for more of God? 

Be blessed and be a blessing and remember that breakthrough is a VERB!