So many emotions visit me everyday of my life. I believe they do yours as well. I have disciplined myself to freeze the yucky thoughts, shine them into the Word of God and if they are truly yucky then I discard them in the name of my Lord Jesus. But this is a process and it takes time. Certainly not as much time as it used to.
For instance: I was looking over some pictures taken at our Church functions. I noted all the children, we LOOK like a great Sunday school class, but the reality is- we rarely have children in our Sunday school or in our church. We might have children once a month, and I never know which children will come, or what ages - it is very challenging to this Teacher. This has made it VERY difficult to prepare lessons. It can be VERY discouraging as I like to be organized and prepared. Countless times I have prepared a lesson only to have no students.
You can guess how satan loves to feed me gallons of yucky thoughts on that!
Well I have my lesson studied for tomorrow whether any children come or not. Did it hurt me to prepare a lesson from God's word? NO! I need to be into God's Word and into study mode, not just read mode.
However in light of my acknowledgment that I was feeling down about not having children in our church - I decided to actively fight it.
What I did next was to make little circle badges for the children who come to church tomorrow! It says " I came to Sunday School!"
I fought my stinking depressive thoughts with positive action.
NOW if children come I can reward them.
IF they do not come, I have fought a good fight!
