FEEL AGAIN

Day 14

Saturday, January 15

Read:

You keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on you, because he trusts in you. Isaiah 26:3

Devote:

Johns Hopkins Medical School has found that 70% of disease is psychosomatic. What does that mean? The word psyche means “the mind,” and soma is “the body.” This is not to say that 70% of diseases are not real, but rather that the origin of these diseases is not found in a physical cause. The origin, in nature, first occurred in the mind. As a person begins to harbor and foster negative thoughts in the mind, these manifest into the body. Thoughts have the ability to make us well or to poison the body. Negative thoughts weaken the immune system and poison the bloodstream. Several years ago, Stanford University found over 2000 different chemical secretions that were released into the body, from the brain into the bloodstream, which were all based on a person’s thoughts – good or bad. If you are not careful, you can begin to develop negative thoughts towards other people without understanding that while these thoughts have absolutely no effect on the other person whatsoever, they do affect you. That’s a part of why Jesus went to such great extents to teach us to turn the other cheek. This was not simply a teaching. If someone asked you to walk one mile, walk two. If someone asked for your coat, give them your cloak. If they hit you on one cheek, give them the other side. The whole premise of this teaching was freedom and reliance on God. True freedom is found when it is God who is in control, and not people, events, or circumstances. This attitude frees us from animosity, hatred, aggravation, ill-will, grief, sorrow, pain, and suffering - all the things that poison and destroy your emotions, your mind, and your physical body. Jesus gave this wisdom in one simple teaching and showed how to become free from these things. Just as our thoughts can make us ill, they can also help us to heal. Consider people who practice “mind-body” therapy. There is growing clinical evidence that imagery is beneficial in treating skin disease, diabetes, breast cancer, arthritis, headaches, and severe burns. Jesus taught in Mark that “Whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours.” Today is a good day to begin to pray and in faith to see yourself resting in God for a positive outcome, to start to change your life as you get freedom from poisonous thoughts.

Journal:

Jot down the areas of your life that you can say God is in complete control over.

Reflect:

For the areas that you have closed off to him, why have you?

Pray:

God, please free me from poisonous thoughts. Realign my mind toward you and remind me constantly of the peace that is mine when I rest in you.

Author:

The Mind: Mental and Emotional Health by Dr. Rob Carmen