Personal Declarations

We had a very God inspired message from our pastor last night. He started off the message by telling us he has heard so many "You ought to" sermons, but just a few "How to" sermons. This was a night for a very practical "how to" sermon, that we could all apply to our lives.

So often we do negative self talk from our mouths and in our minds that regularly commits suicide in our lives.

"The tongue has the power of life and death, and those who love it will eat its fruit."Proverbs 18:21 (NIV)
"Words kill, words give life; they're either poison or fruit—you choose." Proverbs 18:21 (The Message)

We focus so much on eliminating the negative thoughts in our lives, we often forget to emphasize positive thoughts to ourselves.

We need to learn to make personal declarations in our lives.

We must focus on God's promises and start verbalizing them.

Use "I Declare" Statements:"I declare when I feel afraid, I will trust in Him."
"I declare I will walk by faith, not by sight."
"By faith, I declare God's promises are bigger than my circumstances."
"I declare God will be with me."
"I declare I will open up before God, I will keep nothing back, and He will do what needs to be done."
"I declare there is no fear in love, perfect loves drives out fear."
"I declare God will provide a way out for me."
"I declare I will bind myself with the peace God has given me."

So all this is good to hear, but it means nothing unless you apply it to your life. Our pastor handed each of us an index card. On one side of the card we were supposed to write down what our biggest struggle is right now. And then on the opposite side, we needed to find a declaration to say. Something that is a promise from God.

Right now my biggest personal struggle is STRESS. Even just hearing the word causes me to feel anxious. I have so much stuff going on this month; I've been spending way too much time worrying about how I'm going to get it all done. I have a few big projects that I'm working on. Our church is going to be sponsoring "Rev Up Your Engines" in a few weeks, and I'm in charge of getting 500 copies of the coloring book printed, bound, and stuffed into some goody-bags. The printing itself takes me days to do. I have a few other ministry things I've agreed to do this month for church, and on top of that it's my son's 3rd birthday. That means a party! I never do things small, no matter how good my intentions are, the parties turn into big gigantic loads of work. There are costumes, invitations, food, party games, etc. that all need to get planned. It's a lot of work, but for the most part I really enjoy doing it for my children. It's a gift of my love to them.

I think the biggest stressor right now in my life, I've turned into the official family taxi driver. For two weeks now, my husband's car has been dead. It's not just a short term dead; I think the car has finally lived out its life in our family. It's celebrating its 20th year, and I don't think its usefulness can last much longer than that. So being taxi driver means, I have an hour of driving to do each morning, just dropping the kids off at school, then Titus off at his work. I walk with my mom for an hour, then Zech and I have a few hours together before nap time. I wake him up, where we drive to the school and wait for about 30 minutes for the kids to get out of school. You might think I could go closer to the time, but that would actually mean Zech and I would have to park a block away from the school, and walk. So Zech and I wait. After the kids get out, we head home to work on homework, and I have a chance to start dinner. Then we all load back up into the car, and drive out to Forbes Field where Titus works. That's about 40 minutes of driving and waiting. We finally get home for the night and I'm able to finish cooking dinner. We eat, I try to clean up a little and then go on to whatever activity is planned for the evening. Almost every night there's something that we've committed to do. The only hope I have to look forward to is 6 months from now we will have enough money to purchase another car. I have survived for two weeks on this schedule. Surely I can do another 5 1/2 months, right?

My personal declaration is :
I declare I will take things one step at a time, one day at a time, because God has not given me more than I can handle!