Watch Your Self Talk and Apply Gratitude

Our self talk often goes undetected. Words we tell to ourselves like:

- I can't beat his/her skill
- I am a miserable man/woman, and always be like that
- I hate her/him for hurting me, no, I can't forgive her/him
- I'm a shy person, and I'm gonna stay this way
- she/he is so annoying, why can't she/he listen to me and do what I suggest?
- This trouble is too big, I can't handle this, whatever!
- etc

Our self talk could be about ourselves, our husband/wife, our friend, other people, or about condition/situation. It could be a condemnation, assumption, thoughts, or things we say to control our actions and reactions. And like any other talk, it could be positive or negative. But the most important thing that we should ask ourselves whenever we realize that we have our self talk is, whether it is in line with God's truth or not.

I has just realized that I have many wrong self talks, assumptions, jealousy, self-pity, and ignorance... If I didn't examine my self talk, they would go unnoticed for sure... and I would lose my chance to check myself and to fix my mindset.

Yesterday I read someone's writing, he shared about what he was doing to examine his self talk. He brought a little notepad and a pen, and he wrote every self talk that went on his mind about everything. How he was surprised to found that he had bad thoughts about his marriage, his wife, his job, and everything else... those little thoughts could sum up and become bigger and bigger, and at the end it has the potential to break or corrupt his own life...

We have to master our mind and submit it to God. Beside apply His words of truth into our mind, we have to make sure that we have a gratitude mindset.

"Give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus."
1 Thessalonians 5:18

Paul is not telling you to be thankful for all the bad things that happen in your life, but rather we are to be thankful in our circumstances. There is a major difference between being thankful for every situation in life and being thankful in those situations. He challenges us to find reasons to be thankful even in the worst of struggles. Your circumstances might not change, but your attitude toward them can change, and that will make all the difference

We can simply focusing on the many things in our life for which we can be thankful. And making notes of them might help a lot... since we tend to forget the simple things...

You know, there are times when I ask, "What Your will for me God? Please lead me and show me Your will in my life..." I usually ask that question on specific things, but after I read that verse, apparently He had answered the basic of my question... His will for me is to have a gratitude life...