Focus On These Things

I am a little sleepy this morning. God decided to teach me a lesson at about midnight last night. Rightfully so, I needed it.
 Jimmy and I got in a little tiff last night and he decided to go to bed angry. I was mad, so instead of doing my normal Bible reading, I decided to do the complete opposite and watch a documentary about Kurt Cobain and Courtney Love. You should know I have this fascination with the human condition, especially addiction and I like to study it watching Intervention and documentaries about drug use, anorexia, etc. (I know its weird.) So as I sat and watched the film, I knew I shouldn't be watching it. It was giving me the creeps. But being defiant I kept watching it and fell asleep with it on. I woke up to my son crawling out of his room complaining of his legs hurting. I felt terror, like I was being attacked. I was afraid, it was disturbing to me for some reason. I am having a hard time accurately describing how I felt, because I have never had this feeling before.. I laid down with him and prayed for the Lord to take away this feeling, the fear was mounting and I felt as though something terrible was going to happen. I repeated the verses I knew on fear. I begged the Lord to protect my mind. I wondered why was this happening. And then I knew...I shouldn't be watching things like this anymore. I told the Lord I would stop watching things that have to do with drugs, death, etd. I prayed myself to sleep after feeling terrorized.
 In the morning, I dove into my favorite Book. I looked up some verses on fear. "I prayed to the Lord and he answered me. He freed me from all my fears. Those who look to him for help will be radiant with joy; no shadow of shame will darken their faces." Psalms 34:4-5. I knew that God would rescue me from this fear, and He did. I now needed to find out how to keep my end of the bargain. I was called to Philippians 4. "Always be full of joy in the Lord. I say it again-rejoice! Let everyone see that you are considerate in all you do. Remember, the Lord is coming soon. Don't worry about anything; instead pray about everything. Tell God what you need, and thank Him for all He has done. Then you will experience God's peace, which exceeds anything we can understand. His peace will guard your hearts and minds as you live in Christ Jesus. And now, dear brothers and sister, one final thing. Fix your thoughts on what is true and honorable, and right, and pure, and lovely, and admirable. Think about things that are excellent and worthy of praise. Keep putting into practice all you learned and received from me-everything you heard from me and saw me doing. Then the God of peace will be with you. v.4-9" I couldn't ask for a better example! This refers to 4 of the fruits of the Spirit, and the other 5 could be encompassed in this as well. "Fix your thoughts..." This phrase is what spoke to me the most. Why am I so fixated on watching people inflicting pain on themselves, suffering, and being disobedient to the Lord? The Lord blessed me to not have any addictions or experiences with drugs, so it is kind of disrespectful to be so interested in it, to the point that I choose to watch it rather than reading my Bible sometimes. I need to focus on what is true, honorable, right, pure, lovely, admirable, excellent and worthy of praise! That would be things of the Lord. I am not saying all television is bad, but if I am making the choice to spend time watching something I need to ask myself 2 questions. (1) Do I feel like I spent good, quality time with the Lord today? And (2) is what I am watching acceptable for what I believe and respectful to my God? Garbage in, garbage out, right? I want to focus more on putting the right stuff in my mind, it makes a huge difference.
Although last night was very scary, I am glad I went through it. Because now I shut something out of my life that I had been needing to do for awhile now. So my inspiration today is Philippians 4:4-9. And my question to you is, what do you need to get out of your life so you can focus on what is true, honorable, right, pure, lovely, admirable, excellent and worthy of praise? I'd love to know so I can pray for you in that process. God bless.