Guest Post – Kelly Balarie

(Kelly is the author of the new book Take Every Thought Captive, which is being released today!)

My Epic Fail at Taking Thoughts Captive (and my learnings)

I don’t know how to improve. Is God’s grace really for me – such a mess up? How could God ever save me when I’m acting like this? Will He really change me, or the situation I’ve found myself in?

Friends, yesterday I was so deep in a pit of stinking thinking, I could no longer see God’s faithfulness. It was bad. God seemed far. Self-condemnation was near. I was getting everything all wrong. I was thinking all wrong and I knew it. I’m a bad wife. I’m not loving my kids well. I haven’t made good decisions. I am letting people down. A heavy weight of sadness was trying to creep up on me. I could feel it calling my name. It wanted me to give up, ball up, and cry out in bed.

Ever been there?

I can’t say I handled everything right yesterday. In fact, I did horrible. And, for me, as an author of the book, “Take Every Thought Captive: Exchange Lies of the Enemy for the Mind of Christ,” it made me feel like a hyper-hypocrite.

Here I am presenting a book on how to stand firm in truth, and to be like Jesus and I am in a pit of despair. Ain’t one of us perfect. There by the grace of God, go I. All I know is – I stand hand-in-hand with you, as a fellow sinner, without Jesus.

This I know about me: Without God, there’s not much good to report.

Frankly, not one of us is going to think perfectly. Not one of us will be positive all the time. Not one of us will always believe the best about others, hope the best about our future, and love like a perfect little angel. What do we do in this place when, like Paul said, what we don’t want to do, we do?

Do we scream and give up? Do we fight like a wild woman? Do we numb ourselves?

Frankly, seeing the weight of our own mistake feels crushing – like French-pressed coffee – under the weight of everything being forced down on it.

There is only thing that gets us out; it is a key to taking thoughts captive. It is something we can’t just know cerebrally, but we must receive wholeheartedly. It must go past just being mental to being heart-transformational; then, we break prison bars open!

Do you know what I am talking about? It is a little 5-letter word that changes everything: grace (God’s equipping, empowering, and enabling free gift of help and restoration).

Not one, not ever, has saved themselves.

“For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—⁹ not by works, so that no one can boast.” (Eph. 2:8-9 NIV)

It is God’s undeserved, unwarranted, and unearned grace that is still working, still saving, still transforming, still making a way for us, on Earth as it is in Heaven.  Yes, we are saved for eternity, but grace still has earthly application.

“Let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need.” (Heb. 4:16 KJV)

When we receive God’s grace, we receive gain prison-bar-breaking freedom.

A mind receiving grace goes about thinking:

• My mess is big but God’s empowering grace – that sets me free – is bigger.
• I can’t change me, but His power to sanctify me and to change me is radical and working.
• Jesus saved me and, by grace, He still saves and helps those who come to Him in prayer.
• God’s grace is enough; His power is made perfect even in my weakness.
• God knows me, right where I am today. He still loves me and helps me.
• I am not lost or abandoned; I am wanted.
• All of God + none of me = a complete work of what He wants to do.
• The pressure is off.

Friends, I can’t say that I was the picture-perfect image of a biblical woman taking thoughts captive yesterday. Hardly! But I can say God’s grace is enough. It is working for me. It is helping me, even when I don’t feel worthy. It is teaching me, even when I feel like a lost cause. His grace is more powerful than my natural mind. And, in receiving, I trust in that! 

Prayer: Father God, frankly, I don’t feel that great about me. I feel like I have let you down. I am sorry. Will you forgive me? Will you also give me all the grace and mercy I so desperately need? I don’t want to be just a hearer of your Word. I want to be a doer of it. I want to show love to others and myself. I want to be kind towards myself even when I falter. I want to see myself as holy and blameless because of the finished work of Jesus on the cross. God, help me to receive your grace and not to mark myself out because of what I see in the natural. I trust you. I ask for your grace and I receive it now. In Jesus’ name. Amen.

About the Book, “Take Every Thought Captive”

In Take Every Thought Captive: Exchange Lies of the Enemy for the Mind of Christ, author and speaker Kelly Balarie encourages readers to seize the power of God’s Word to not only profess truth, but possess it in their mind, heart, and actions.

Take Every Thought Captive helps readers:

·      transform their minds and release the worries, burdens, and lies from the enemy

·      pray through times of mental and emotional strife

·      become warriors and fight for God’s plan and purpose

·      use God’s Word proactively instead of living defensively and defeated

For prayers, scriptural encouragement and a Take Every Thought Captive Worksheet, visit: www.ITakeThoughtsCaptive.com

About Kelly Balarie

Get all of Kelly’s blog posts by email!  Kelly Balarie, author (Battle Ready, Rest Now, Take Every Thought Captive), speaker, and blogger, delights in joining hands with women as they go through life’s ups and downs. To see God move to revive hearts, to restore relationships, and to bring hope to weary souls are highlight moments for Kelly. Beyond this, Kelly has led spiritual growth Bible study groups and has been seen on TODAY, The 700 Club, Crosswalk.com, iBelieve.com, and (in)courage. Her work has also been featured by Relevant and Today’s Christian Woman. She lives with her husband and two kiddos on the East Coast.

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Running

“Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, ² fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith. For the joy set before him he endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.”
Hebrews 12:1-2

“¹² Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already arrived at my goal, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. ¹³ Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, ¹⁴ I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.”
Philippians 3:12-14

These passages have been hard for me to get through my head, and I’ll tell you why. I ran track when I was a sophomore in high school. The Sis and The Sis-In-Law and the rest of our friends were on the track team, and I thought it would be fun to join them. Because I wasn’t fast enough to run sprints and couldn’t run for long enough to do the longer races, I ran the 400 meter race. (I am told now it’s one of the hardest races to run. Thanks for letting me know then, track coach (not).) Turns out I am just a very slow runner, and I lost every single race. I mean, I came in dead last. Every. Single. Race. I went to every practice and every meet, but since I wasn’t one of the winning team members the coaches pretty much ignored me and didn’t give me any pointers. When it was time to give out awards, I really hoped that I could get a letter just because I tried as hard as I could and ran every race regardless of my lack of talent and subsequent embarrassment, but you only got a letter if you received a certain number of points and that meant you had to win events. (Our school didn’t offer letters in choir. If they had, I totally would have gotten all the letters.)

Hebrews 12:1 talks about running with endurance, and Philippians 3:14 talks about winning the prize. Well, I ran but I didn’t have much endurance (hence my not being able to run the longer races), and I never won a prize. The only competition I’ve ever won on my own was a spelling competition in middle school, and then when it came to the bigger contest I didn’t come close to winning that one. Not being a competitive person by nature, I don’t enter contests if I know I will be competing directly against others. I don’t like competition. I mean, I enjoy winning but really don’t have confidence that I will.

So I have always been rather flummoxed when reading these Bible passages about running and winning, since now I can’t even run at all (Well, I can run half a block. Then I have to stop because I can’t breathe. Ow. Running hurts.) and I have never been good enough at anything to win any important competitions. And I am not that great at pressing on toward goals I set for myself, so there’s also that.

I have decided, however, to replace “run” with “hike” in my thinking. I can hike with perseverance and reach the hiking goal, so that speaks to me better then the idea of running. I have reached many summits (though not any 14ers, but then I haven’t tried) and have only had to turn around a couple of times, mostly because of sketchy snow on the trail. This gives me hope that although I will never be like Jesus completely, I can move forward and become more like Him as I hike through life. I’m a slow hiker, but I get places.

Me on a summit

Obviously there is so much more to these scriptures, but that is for another post!