Today’s devotional time began with this statement–“Exchange Your Thoughts”. What I didn’t realize was that these 3 words were going to be the entire lesson of this morning. When I began the 3 years of counseling 13 years ago, my mind was bombarded with continuous thoughts about who I am and what I should/shouldn’t be doing. Most of them were focused on why I wasn’t worthy to do what I was doing and why I should quit. I’m primarily talking about two things: leading Celebrate Recovery and doing the consulting with schools. I was believing lies and was trying without success to stuff those lies so I could move forward each day. So, as I began the counseling the counselor would take one of these thoughts and we would go deeply into them. The EMDR (therapy for PTSD) would assist in surfacing the abuse of my past which led to me believing these lies. This process started helping me exchange my thoughts for truth.

As I worked through my devotions, each part was focused on this same theme. I write all of this because this start of my counseling others has caused me to “fight the lies” all over again. I find myself using the process of taking one lie and helping the counselee go deeply into what has caused this lie to seem as though it were truth. In so doing this, I have my own thoughts such as–“good grief, aren’t you something–trying to help others when you are…………..”

II Corinthians 10:5 says: “We take every thought captive to make it obedient to Christ.” Today, I understand this verse so much more clearly. I no longer have the hundreds of thoughts to take captive. There are only a very few these days, and I can do this and will do this–now that I have been clearly reminded. God is so patient and He wants me to use my learning to help others with theirs.