Summary: <p>Look for red, OK, how much green did you see? <br><br>Why can't atheists see God? <br>People find what they are looking for. <br>Some people see the negative in everything and some people see the positive. Its the same situation so what becomes important is the person’s perception of reality, rather than the reality itself. <br>We get in ruts, we allow negative patterns of thought into our lives and they become habits, and the habits then become addictions. <br>They say depression is a learned behavior, but this learned behavior can then become an addiction. When you encourage depressed people they can literally become angry with you because you are messing with their addiction. <br>Proverbs 23:9 9 Don’t waste your breath on fools, for they will despise the wisest advice. <br>They say emotions really only last 90 seconds so that after 90 seconds we are choosing to feel a certain way. Emotions are the result of internal or external stimulus, and we often take the negative emotions, embrace them, and they become feelings that carry on. For Christians, we are not only to take every thought captive and make it obedient to Christ but every emotion. After 90 seconds is when the battle begins for the Christian. <br>Negative emotions that we embrace so that they become part of our identity can negatively affect our mental or even our physical health. <br>We prefer to play the victim role and blame others rather than take personal responsibility for our choices. <br>We get in the habit of thinking, “I can’t. People are stopping me, holding me down and holding me back from all that the Lord has promised.” The only thing holding us back is us. <br>Are you in the battle or do you allow yourself to be carried away by your negative emotions as if you have no control over them? <br>The Law of Attraction is not some mystical thing as if you control the universe, but really speaks to a person’s perception and the person’s ability to recognize the opportunities in life or not. <br>P.O.O.R. acronym- Passing Over Opportunities Regularly. How many opportunities do we pass over when we refuse to face our struggles, the struggles the LORD desires to use to shape us into the image of Jesus? <br>If you want to know what the Lord is doing in your life and what He wants to teach you, the fastest way to figure that out is look where you are struggling. The sooner you learn the lesson He has for you the sooner you can move past it. <br>What if we created a new rule for our lives? What if we began to assume that every personal problem we have is really a symptom of a deeper root issue that God wants to release us from? <br>A 5 year old girl develops a cough. Later the parents discover that this was the result of her feeling the rejection of her step mother. The step mother learned to love her step daughter and the cough disappears. <br>A college student develops anorexia but when her father learns to stop tearing down his ex-wife and begins expressing love and appreciation for his ex-wife his daughter’s anorexia goes away. <br>A woman is stuck in bed for 2 years, but when her mother in law and grandmother in law finally express to her that it is OK to get an education and be a working mother, she immediately gets better, because she had been punishing her family making them take care of her because they had forced her to be a stay at home mother. <br>Why do some people always seem to have financial struggles, or anger, or are always complaining? They try again and again to correct these things but because they fail to go to the root issue, the problems continue. Remember, our personal problems are there to direct our attention to the root cause, the one we have been refusing to face. <br>In these examples we see that our sin affects more than just us. Our sin, the sin we often fail to acknowledge affects our whole family. <br>We need to think through the consequences of not making changes in our lives. We need to realize the consequences of refusing to face our real issues, and allow the consequences to motivate us to real change. <br>Here we need to direct our attention to the idea of insanity. We keep responding to our personal problems in the same way expecting different results. When we get in fights with our family members, when we lose our temper, when we always find things to complain about. What if we repented instead and asked for the Holy Spirit to illuminate the depravity of our own hearts to us? <br>Here we see why repentance is not only commanded, but is also absolutely essential. If we continue on in the same patterns, why should we expect different results. Repentance is a gift that allows us to see things for how they really are so we can grow. <br>The consequence of failing to repent is that we live a life as the angry person, or the complaining person, or the negative person, or the detached person or whatever. <br>Here is where we also need to direct our attention to the idea of mental hygiene. What negative influences are you allowing in your life? Are you careful with what external stimuli you allow in your life <br>Are your friends building you up or tearing you down? <br>Do you watch horror movies or other movies with no redeeming quality? <br>Is the music you listen to uplifting or depressing, bring joy, or cause hate, anger and disgust? <br>What is the language you grew up with in your family? Did you hear things like you are not good enough, you will never amount to anything, you always disappoint? Are you carrying these negative patterns with you now in your own family? <br>Yes, we are the product of our environment, but what environment are you creating through the choices that you make? What changes, what decisions do you need to make to change your environment?<br><br>CG Questions <br>1. Which part of Psalm 73 did you relate to most?<br><br>2. We see the Psalmist complaining in the first part of the Psalm. What areas of your life do you find yourself complaining about the most? What does your complaining say with reference to your relationship with God? (When considering areas in which we complain, look for the kinds of complaints that come up again and again through your life, look for the patterns.)<br><br>3. What would it look like to seek to make a connection with areas you complain or in areas you have personal problems and what the Lord would desire to teach you in those areas? What would repentance look like? How could repentance help set you free?<br><br>3b. Have you considered that your personal problems are really a reflection of something deeper? Please consider and explain.<br><br>3c. Do you see the connection between complaining and abandoning God? Please explain.<br><br>4. Look at the areas you experience pain or discontent, or anger, or sadness. In light of Psalm 73:14, what might the connection be between feeling these ways and what the Lord desires to teach you?<br><br>5. Consider Psalm 73:21. Are you in the habit of considering that you are harboring bitterness in your heart as part of your Christian life? Where are some areas where you are experiencing bitterness and what would repentance look like and what benefits would result? How could drawing closer to God impact these areas of bitterness (Psalm 73:28)?</p>
