Rewiring our brain to lighten the load

Welcome to treasures in the storm. My name is Cindy schmidle er and we have a very special show today. I’m calling it how to rewire our brains to put on um lightness in our burdens as God would have us do it. And so we need to put our working shoes on today. We need to get pen and paper and our bibles open. So as we search the scriptures because we want to see what God says about this and then we want to learn because paul as paul did, he learned contentment, he learned how to lighten his load even in the worst of circumstances, right? He says nobody had it worse than me. I’ve been ship wrecked, I’ve been flogged and it goes on and on. Right. And so we want to grasp hold of what God wants for us in lightning our burdens by putting on the mind and it’s possible friends because God calls us to it, putting on in our minds the things he would have us have. And so get your coffee, we’re going to work and I’m gonna pray for us. So dear heavenly father Lord, we need um, your strength today. We need your mind today. We need more belief today. We need to trust you more in these things that you’re asking us. We need to not rely on how we feel but trust what you say in your word, this life giving book that you have given us. That shows us how much you love us and care about us and know what what is best for us Lord. That’s what we want. We want to put that on. We want that completely in our souls and in our minds and in our hearts today. So will you give that to us as we get into the scriptures? Lord speak to us. Give us a feeding Lord and any in my audience are struggling today. Will you put your appointment in them? God? Will you give them some strength? Will you bring your ministering angels to help them today? Lord God, any going through grief? Any afraid today? Lord, please will you speak into that today for them, God, because that’s that’s who you are. That’s what you do, Lord. And we want Father. We want our our nose to be pressed against your nose. That’s how close we want to be. And so please Lord help us in this in jesus name. So today we’re gonna be rewiring our brains. We’re gonna lighten our burdens, Philippians 44 says rejoice in the Lord always, I will say it again. Rejoice is what he says in Philippians 44. So he wants us to be light and free. And as John 1010 says, you know, Jesus says, I’ve come to give you abundant life. He wants to give us abundant life today, but we and the thief come to kill still under strong. We just don’t want him to do that anymore. We’re gonna claim that today. Second Corinthians 105 is a favorite verse of mine. It says to take captive. Every thought. Every, every single thought. Every needs to be circled every single thought and make it captive. We could circle captive to make it captive to Obedience in christ that’s what we need to do. We need to think about what we’re thinking about, take that captive and make it obedient to what God wants us thinking about. And this really begins when our heart and it’s applied to everything because everything begins in our mind, doesn’t it? So we want to think about what we’re thinking about. That’s the first thing and often I don’t know about you, but I could be driving in the car and in a nanosecond. I have written a novel and usually my novels are not very positive. Their death and destruction and misery for me or whoever else I’m thinking about. And sometimes a good example of this in this life of Covid that we live in now. Um I remember a friend of mine um got diagnosed with Covid ended up in the hospital young gal and shouldn’t be there. She just shouldn’t be there. And I found my heart, God had given me peace all along about Covid because even in a situation like that he is with us isn’t he? He has not left us, he has not left us, my dear friends and but my heart starts pounding and that’s what I want to say to you when your heart starts pounding and you feel anxiety rising up in you. That’s when you need to get preaching to yourself? That’s when we need to start holding our thoughts captive. And I had let myself stray. It happens often to us, right? I was feeling my friends pain being in the hospital and she was so sick and I just kept feeling her pain. And the more I thought about it, the more I thought about it and didn’t take it to the heavenly Father. I kept it here in my mind. That’s when my misery started coming. And so I started thinking a second thought and a third thought and pretty soon I’m starting to be afraid of everything and that’s what happens, isn’t it? All of a sudden that thing over here, even a good thing caring about a friend, praying for a friend becomes a bad thing for me. Why? Because I took it in the members of my body into my mind and I didn’t cast it off on the throne where God lives and God cares about it and he cares about her. Get that off of my mind. And then pretty soon I couldn’t sleep. And what was happening was my, what I was doing, the garden of my mind was becoming poisonous and there were weeds growing up everywhere in matter of seconds and all of a sudden now I’m miserable not. And what benefit am I to my friend? Now when I’m living in misery not. And the next thing I know I have this weight on my chest like an elephant is standing on my chest. Do you ever feel like that? Like an elephant standing on your chest? That weight of anxiety that I have caused because I didn’t captivate my mind and make it obedient to what God wanted it to be and that my friends is called sin. We we talk about worry, we talk about anxiety and all of that as if it’s um just a kind thing that lives next to us and we all deal with it, but in reality it’s sin. And if we would call it what it is and we grab hold of what it is and we asked the Lord to forgive us and give us a right mind and heart, we will be more peaceful. I live just like you, I don’t live any different than you do on this. And so as my mind was being captivated by not God and the things he wants, but by my friend and her misery and not trusting God, taking care of her, then it became my sin. The kind of mind that God wants us to have Is in Philippians 448, ready for this turn to 48, highlight this. If you don’t already know this, these are words that we should have memorized because they need to be living in our brains. It says finally brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, Whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable. If anything is excellent or praiseworthy, think about such things. So that’s the mind of christ that we need to have think on things that are true and lovely and excellent and praiseworthy and right and noble. Those are the kind of things that we want to be thinking about and we need to keep in our mind. Well, well what did I have in my mind? I had misery, death, God’s not there. He’s not going to take care of my friend. I’m gonna get it. My life is going to be miserable. Those are all deaf to what God would have me thinking and they’re called sin and that that elephant on my chest, if I let it go too long will be too big for me too big for me to handle. So today we need to get in I think of the garden of our mind and we need to smash those worry thoughts and grab hold of them as the scripture says, pull them out, confess your sin and get back to God. And sometimes if you’ve been thinking for a long time it will be, you might have to do that a few times. You might have to go take a walk, you might have to remove yourself from whatever it is that’s causing you to not be able to let go Matthew 5 30 says if your right hand causes your left hand to sin, cut it off. God is really serious about sin. It’s not a little thing, it’s a big thing. And so as I went down this road of misery and put worry on that’s that has to be taken out or I should be cutting my while, you can’t do this, but cut your brain out, you know, stop it, you have to stop it, you have to be serious about it and stop it. I call it stinking thinking, we have to stop that stinking thinking and don’t seek to understand so that you think you can believe it will never happen, belief comes first, so believe believe, believe in order that you may understand that’s the order. Faith. Faith in the scriptures is sure and certain that’s what faith is sure and certain of what you do not see, that’s why it’s called faith. And in our conversations we don’t want to play what I call the worry real in our minds over and over and over, we’re playing the same real, that same worry real. And not only that we’re telling everyone our sad stories right? And so as we tell our sad stories were replaying that real again and the more you replay it, the harder it is to get it off and oh by the way how honoring is that to our heavenly father when we’re playing that real over and over and over. Am I walking in the flesh, my flesh, my feelings, This is how I feel. Or am I walking in the spirit, We want to be walking in the spirit. So we need to build a bridge over those things that are drowning us. We need to build a bridge. So how do we do that? How do we lay a foundation that’s hardest steel and concrete, that’s so firm that these things can’t get in, they can’t get in anymore. Well, one is, you have to understand that God is in the center of these things and that he loves us. Those are the two most important things you will ever learn in your life, that he is so big and so mighty and so capable and yet he is so involved in all the details of your life Of others lives. You know, like Psalm 139 says it’s already in this book. I remember when Adam was young, this was right before he was going to college and some friends had invited us whitewater rafting and I had never been before and I thought, oh, this will be fun, a fun adventure. But then I started thinking about it, you know, my mind, my real started playing well what if the rapids are really big, you know, that would be scary. And then I start talking to people and it’s like when you go to have your wisdom teeth pulled and you tell your friends and you tell acquaintances and the next thing, you know, they tell you every horror story on earth and none of that ever happens to you. But you hear all of that. You just hear all of that. And so here I am getting ready to go whitewater rafting and my mind starts playing. I start talking to the people and people are telling me, Oh, yes! I heard about somebody who fell out of the boat and died and there was blood in the water. I’m like, what I mean, shocking things. And oh, you have to wear a helmet when you got whitewater rafting a helmet. Why would I have to wear a helmet? And then I hear somebody fell out and their leg got stuck in the rocks and I’m like in the rocks and they could get out. And I and that night not a wink of sleep because all I could think about was falling out of the boat and dying, falling out of the rap. And that’s not what God wanted for me. He wanted me to have this wonderful adventure with our son. The opposite of what was going on with me. And so I needed to start speaking to myself, I needed to pull all of those weeds that, oh, by the way I’ve caused because I’ve dwelt on it. Not only did I dwell on it, I told others about it and they helped me and it became so big! It was so big! And so I started preaching. And I put logic on it. I thought wait a minute when I get in the car and I put my seatbelt on. I am not expecting to get in an accident and neither are you. It’s just something that we do and that’s the rules of rafting. You put the helmet on, you’re not expecting that you’re gonna fall out of the raft. And as I got my mind cleaned out, pulled out all those weeds, took captive the thoughts Lord, this is gonna be an adventure of good that you have for my son and I. And so when I did that God helped me to get that mind back under control. And that trip was so magnificent. I actually rode in the pole position right in the front had the best time of my life with my son. Just how God intended. That’s what he wants for us. I think about when Adam started driving, I remember hearing from all of the parents the nightmares about your child driving and my heart starts pounding. That’s when we start putting on the right thoughts. Right? My heart’s pounding. And I went to the Lord and I said, Lord, I am making a commitment to you that I will not think about our son driving. Not one minute ever. Not one minute. So I made this call it a fleece or whatever to the Lord. And um Adam got his license and that very next day it snowed 4\” and he needed to drive on the freeway to get to school. So a long trip on the freeway to get to school In 4\” of snow and I laughed. I said okay Lord you are testing me, you are testing me in this. And so initially it was really hard, I had to just grab those thoughts, not think about this Lord. And I preached to myself, he is in your hands, you’ve got this Lord, I don’t need to think about this. So that’s what I would tell myself because that’s truth. I was putting truth in the situation and and he he had the best time driving and so did I because I never thought about it. And so that’s what we need to do. I’d like to say this to do you know that you can even stop a bad dream that you’re having and the fact that I have just told you that will help you to be able to do that when you’re having a bad dream. That’s just a side note. Again, our minds are so powerful aren’t they? Mhm. You know, rewiring our brain can help us with anxiety. I’m not talking about and anxiety and non clinical depression. We know that there is hormones and and things that affect our brain that we just don’t have control over. It can help with anger and sadness and so there are six principles I want to go over that I had learned to share with you just to help you do this and it’s a practical thing, you can do a day by day thing and initially it will be harder and then it will get easier because what are we doing were rewiring our brain how God wants it to be from where it is. Okay, so this the the overview of this is we’re going to refrain from a simple thing of no negative thoughts. We’re not gonna let negativity in our brain because God says right, what I want in your brain is lovely things, praiseworthy things. We need to focus on our core values. And one of the principles of our core values is proverbs. 35 and six were to trust in the Lord with all of our heart and lean not on our own understanding, we are to acknowledge him in all of our ways and he will make our paths straight. That’s a core value. That’s a promise of God. That needs to be in our thinking all the time. We need to be grateful for the small stuff, why? Because God is in it, He’s in all the stuff and this is the most helpful Godly thing you can do and you know what else? It brings glory to the Lord when we do that. So be grateful for the small stuff. When you’re when you’re thinking it starts to get you on a bad road, seek out Lord, okay this is my situation and it looks bad. Help me to put a good thought into it. We need to move from a pessimistic outlook. You know people who are pessimistic, you know what that’s like and find the possibility of good in a negative situation. It’s are you ready for this? It’s empowering, it’s calming and it’s God glorifying and so that’s why we want to do it. I hope you’re writing this down. Um as we think about you all have friends, you all know people who are so negative and don’t you find you really don’t want to be around them? Why? Because they’re miserable and you don’t want to be around that. So that’s why and sometimes God calls you to be around those people and so we we want to bring our bright shining light of hope into those lives and as we do that this increases our confidence and our contentment about the life that God has given us. And there’s nothing that makes God more happy than that. And we need to think about those things that we’ve talked talked about in Philippians 48, those lovely and praiseworthy and excellent thoughts. We need to put those in our head and that way we’re gardening our mind. Do you know? There’s a science of called positive psychology C. B. T. It’s called the science of happiness. It they the world. Science says this is what makes people flourish. We know what makes people flourish is intimacy with God, trusting him. That’s what makes us flourish. But these are the thoughts that God wants us to have. And it’s interesting that the world is grabbing, grab hold of this and we yet still work on it. So let’s look at some skills from God’s word. Optimism, confidence in God, gratitude, hope, compassion, purpose, empathy. These are all things that God wants us to have. So we want to savor that word. Savior means to not save your saver. That means to stay in the good moment as long as possible, concentrate on the meaning of your activity. See God in it that God says, you know, I I want you to be present. I’ve got tomorrow. And yes, yesterday is gone. Forget about the former things he says in his word And tomorrow hasn’t come. Don’t worry about tomorrow. It says in Matthew right, that’s got enough problems of its own living today because today is the day. I promise you it’s the only one I promise so be fully there 100% today. And the next word is thank and I love this. We know we’re to be thankful, We hear that all the time, but we want to appreciate the things that others do for us. It’s a modern day wonder drug, a huge inoculation of God, vitamins for your soul. It fills us with optimism knowing others are there for us. And it deepens our relationship with loved ones. Don’t you love that. So it’s an inoculation of God vitamins when we apply appreciate the things others do for us. And so today will you begin today with me to appreciate all the things that others are doing for you. It endears you to them them to you and it strengthens their relationships and oh by the way, how please God is that? We are living right where he wants us to and I want us to go to psalm Some nine. Will you come with me to psalm 9? I didn’t just hang on. We’re going to psalm nine. We’re just gonna read versus one and two. And this is from David. David is uh this is after the death of his son. Think about that. After the death of his son. He says, I will give thanks to you Lord with all of my heart. I will tell of all of your wonderful deeds. I will be glad and rejoice in you. I will sing the praises of your name o most high. I’d like to circle a lot of words in there. But he wants us to give thanks. He is thinking with all of his heart, he’s talking about the wonderful deeds that God has done for him. So that’s what God wants for us. We should express appreciation to the Lord and to others. We should celebrate minor accomplishments. Why? Because God has given them to you again, we’re giving honor to him when we do that, we should perform small acts of kindness. Why? Because God calls us to that again. He has this plan and in his plan it brings happiness when we do the things he asks us for. We need to aspire. You know what aspire is? It’s a feeling of hopefulness, having a sense of purpose, being optimistic. It makes you feel more satisfied with light life more upbeat about your future. It makes goals attainable and challenges easier to overcome. Wow, that’s what we want, don’t we? We want it to be easier. Life is hard, We want it to be easier and then we’re to give and we hear this over and over and over over were to be a giver. Giving makes us feel less stressed. Did you know that it makes us less feeling of isolation and less angry. So giving makes us feel less angry. Hmm that makes sense. Huh? We feel more happy, considerably more connected with the world and more open to new experiences. Doing for others. Gives us more life satisfaction, self realization, physical health, mortality is delayed depression is reduced. Well being and good future are increased while those are all great words and those are words that I know I want, I hope you do too Luke Luke 6 38. I’m going to go there because it’s so good when we give and I know you’ve heard this before. Let me take us there Luke 6 38. Come with me. Yeah, Matthew Mark Luke 6 38 here it is ready and you’ve heard this. This is so good. Give jesus words give and it will be given to you a good measure pressed down, shaken together. Running over will be poured into your lap. For with the measure you use it will be measured to you the more you give. Don’t you want to just pouring all over that goodness I do. I want it pouring all over. So let’s be lavish givers empathizes our next word. It means the ability to care about others. So true for our culture today it means the ability to care about others to imagine and understand the thoughts and behaviors or ideas of others including those that are different from ourselves. Did you hear that? Including those that are different to listen and care about what other people think about. We empathize with people. When we empathize with people we become less judgmental, less frustrated, angry or disappointed. You know what? We develop, we develop patients and that’s what we want to. We we don’t want to be judgmental people. We want to be lavish lovers of people’s souls Revive. That’s our last word. We and it’s a simple thing. God calls us to take care of our bodies in Corinthians 6 19 and 20 and so we want to eat well and exercise to Stewart our body as he has called us to. So here’s the thing God wants from us and I think it’s an honoring thing. He wants us to think about this all the time. And you may have been one living over here and the negative maybe. So maybe you have focused so much on all the negative things going on. It’s so easy to do, isn’t it? Because you may have a day of a lot of the negative things happening and so it gets in your mind and pretty soon the next day is more negative and all you can see is the band, you can’t see the good anymore. You need a friend to come and help you. You need to call upon jesus and he will help you. And initially you may three times a day, no less than three times a day, you need to take time and to sit down and to put those words on, you know, think on things that are lovely and praiseworthy and excellent. Find the Good, I call it sucking the life of good out of a day, get in there and work hard to beat your body into submission, to get that good coming as God wants you to and clean out that brain. Do you know when you do that, your brain were wired more to the negative, Our synapses in, our brains are wired more to the negative. Go figure, it’s how we think, right. But when we start thinking how God wants us to think the synapses in, our brain actually are being rewired and our brain is being coming more positive where we can’t even think those things anymore. And that’s what I want for you and that’s what I want for me. And so today, at least three times a day, let’s get going about that. Let’s fight the good fight of faith in this and find the good. Let’s get our friends, let’s get groups together and say, okay, we’re gonna do this today. And then we’re going to talk about it tonight as a family. Let’s do this and we’re gonna talk about it tonight. You can teach your Children how to do this too. Just think how much better you will feel, how much happier, how much easier it will be to rejoice for you as we do this because God has called us to let me pray for us. Dear heavenly father Lord, we thank you again for your word, your active word, God, We thank you Lord, that you show us the way. And it’s not too hard and not only that you’re in us to help us all the way. And so God help us with this, help us to connect so much to you. Keep putting it on our hearts. Lord keep bathing us in that positive that we need to have Lord. And we’re gonna trust you for that all the way. Lord keep giving it to us, where you give it to my audience today, Lord. And if some are really struggling, the fight is so hard today. Can you bring your ministry and angels to them to help them through this Lord, this difficult time bring people that will give them the words that they may need today to build that hope. And again father, we we believe have that you have already answered this prayer as your word says. And we’re trusting you for all of it in jesus name. Thank you so much for joining me today. Mm hmm. Hello, my name is Cindy Schmirler and I have something very special that I want to share with you today. This is a book that I’ve written called tragedy turned upside down. This is a book full of hope and help. If you need some strength today, I call it God vitamins If you need some real uh inoculation of the Lord and faith and belief in your life. This book is for you. My readers have said they devour it. They sit in one sitting to finish it. They have laughed, they have cried. Most of them have taken notes on it because there’s so many good foundational truths in it that you will want to write down and keep for the storms of your life. Mostly you’re going to take this book and you’ll want to share it with others that are struggling to. So at your earliest convenience, I’d say pick it up, read it, you will be blessed, blessed, blessed when you read this and share it with those that are struggling right now. Maybe even if they’re not struggling, somebody who needs to know, maybe they don’t have faith and you want them to have faith. You want them to know who jesus is. This book is for you those words that you you just can’t bring to say to a friend or relative. This book is full of all the things that you had hoped to say to them. So pick it up at your earliest convenience.