Continuing on about how our thoughts affect our lives, today I will talk about how our thoughts affect our emotions which affect our words. In my previous post I talked about how our thoughts affect our feelings and emotions. Today I will talk more bout certain emotions, as well as, how our thoughts affect our words. I want to talk about how worry, anxiety, fear, and depression start with our thoughts and affect our lives. Because they cause so much misery I want to give a better understanding on these emotions.

The verb definition of worry is to allow one’s mind to dwell on difficulty or troubles. It also says that worry causes fear and anxiety. Worry is the perfect thing for the enemy to use to set a snowball effect on our lives, through our thoughts. He will start with small thoughts of what we are facing and all the possible negative impacts that it could have. Then he starts with the constant negative thoughts and adds more and more on top of them. Then comes the “what if” questions. Then it’s the “how am I going to” questions. By then fear of the unknown is setting in and the “what am I going to do” questions start to play on repeat in our mind. Because of all the negative thoughts, our worry has caused fear in us and the fear has caused anxiety.

Once the anxiety sets in, it is no longer just thoughts of the troubles that we are facing at the time. We have begun to have negative thoughts about daily life. Because of the anxiety that we now have, we begin to worry about things that normally wouldn’t bother us. And with the enemy knowing this, he puts more troublesome thoughts in our mind. Things that we wouldn’t normally think twice about are now plaguing our mind. With all of the worry, anxiety, and fear that is within us, we start to get depressed. So on top of the thoughts that has caused our worry, anxiety, and fear, we are now thinking sad, down thoughts that are feeding the depression. The hope that we were holding onto is slowly deminishing with every sad, down thought that we have. Before we know it, we have become severely depressed, losing almost all hope.

I use the word ALMOST because we do have something to still be hopeful about. We can change our thoughts and lift the worry, anxiety, fear, and depression that is among us. Now there are cases that the depression and anxiety are caused by a medical condition. But even if that is the case, the person can help their depression by thinking good, positive, uplifting thoughts.

Our thoughts cause us to speak words that are either life giving or life taking. Because of the way that we think about things, we will begin to speak in the manner that we are thinking. Out of the heart the mouth speaks ( Matthew 12:34). The things are in us will eventually make their way out of us by the words that we speak. We can tell a lot about a person and even ourselves by paying attention to the words that are spoken. And our words are extremely important because we believe more of what we say than what anyone else says. Our words feed our emotions and give birth to the action that we take. If we are feeling down and having down thoughts we will speak down words. If we are feeling good and uplifting then our words will be positive and uplifting. But we can learn to use our words to fight against our feelings instead of feeding them. In order to change our words we have to change our thoughts first, and then align our words with our thoughts. When we think good and speak good then our feelings will catch up and become good. We can be feeling really down but choose to think about uplifting things and then speak uplifting words and the two will uplift our feelings.

The bible speaks of the truth, for every situation, that we need to cover up the lies that the enemy puts in our head. I see the word of God as medicine for our soul. Just like there is medication to help the symptoms and even heal any sickness or issue that we have going on in our physical body, the word of God is the medication we need to help and heal our souls. It is the truth that proves that everything that the enemy says to us is a lie. Anything that we think about that goes against what the bible says is a lie and we must not allow ourselves to take those thoughts as the truth. I am going to give you some examples of the thoughts I have had that contributed to my worry, anxiety, fear, and depression, as well as the thoughts and words that I would think and speak on purpose to stop the bad and wrong ones.

How am I going to be able to get what I need? I have no lack for God supplies all that I need (Philippians 4:19) I will never be able to _______. I can do whatever I need to do because I have Jesus living inside of me (Philippians 4:13).

I am going to get through this? I am a conqueror through Him who loves me and I will get through this (Romans 8:37).

I will always have this problem and I will never be able to stop _______. I am delivered from the power of darkness and sin, I am redeemed from the curse of sin, poverty, and sickness, I am stronger than the devil and I have control over him (Colossians 1:11&13, Deuteronomy 28:15-68, Galatians 3:13).

What if __________ happens, what if ________ doesn’t happen, I will never ________, I will always _________. I will trust God to do what I can not do and I am going to do what I can do. I am God’s child, He loves me no matter what, and I can do what I need to do. If something doesn’t work out then it was not meant to be. I am thankful for ________, I am blessed, I am a new person and learning new ways. I will _________ but I have to be patient with myself (Colossians 2:7, James 4:7, Philippians 3:14, Romans 1:7, Ephesians 2:4, Thessalonians 1:4).

When we think about how we can not do something or think of the what if’s of a situation we have to say that we can do it, that we will do it, and instead of the what if’s in a negative outlook, think and say the possible positive outcomes. Say things like, the situation has not changed but I believe that God is working it all out the way that it should be, something good is going to happen at anytime now, I am making progress, I will be free from ______, I do not let the enemy control me so I will do what I need to do, I am not fighting this alone because Jesus is right here with me.

We have to learn to use our words to build us and others up instead of tearing ourselves and others down. Our words have a lot of power to them and they can empower us or take what little bit of power that we do have away from us. We can help our emotions by our words but we can also make our emotions worse by what we say. We have to choose our thoughts and our words carefully so that we can use them to our advantage. And since we believe more of what we say than of what anyone else says, we must make sure that we speak the truth and speak of positive empowering things.

Begin to think and speak the truth that cover the lies of the enemy today. Do not allow your thoughts to feed worry, anxiety, fear, or depression. Instead us your thoughts to fight against such emotions and then align your words with those thoughts so that you are sure to win over your feelings.