I would like to take a moment to talk about changing your internal programming. This would be your own thoughts, intents, and even habits. You know the things that you might say, “Oh, that’s just my way“ ~ yet it’s such a part of you that if you tried to change it you’d soon find out you’re incapable of the task.
Now let me present you with an actual internal mental problem that I was tracking and trying to change in my thinking. Whenever someone brought up a certain subject; my mind would flood with negative responses about that situation. So I decided to go into intercession and I asked the Lord in His power to go into the library of my mind and to the stacks and stacks of negative memories.
I asked the Lord to take those memories and cast them in to the sea of forgetfulness so I could no longer remember them anymore. At this point the Lord said this, “Richard, do you know that mercy is a gift that only comes from God, and that what you’re asking for is pure mercy?”
The Lord’s response to my prayer set me into a long time of prayer and meditation, as I tried to understand or comprehend this incredible wisdom. But then I saw the simple truth. God has given me many inventions, and through that process I have seen that man cannot create anything. He only gets fresh new ideas from God.
Then suddenly I saw how God creates mercy. He creates and does that which no man can do, erases all the negative and makes our minds completely fresh and new again! What I’m talking about is simply becoming like a child.
This brings us to my title, Resting Versus Strenuous Self Effort (the exercise of trying to fix everything yourself). Oh how many times I have tried to use my own human effort to fix something, especially my own thoughts ~ when God is the only one that can do it. Simple, but a great truth. This is why prayer is so valuable.
Sent in love,
Pastor Richard Gazowsky
A Place To Meet Jesus 