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If you ever run into me in the grocery store, your first impression might be that I am a little crazy. I talk to my groceries. I think I began that habit due to the sensory overload of most stores. It’s my way of staying focused on what I need to buy and not becoming overwhelmed. And don’t worry, the groceries don’t talk back!

Unfortunately, the grocery store is not the only place that I talk to myself. I have a very bad habit of allowing negative thoughts to talk to me during the day. Maybe some of you can relate. The voice of fear, the voice of not good enough, the voice of anxiety and on and on.

The problem, surprisingly, is not so much that I talk to myself, but that I listen to myself. I begin to listen to the negative things I am saying and then I start to believe them. Last of all, I begin to act in a way that shows I believe the negativity.

There is more bad news about listening to negative thoughts. Fear can actually get bigger the more we focus on it. I know my mind can work in this spin cycle where a thought keeps coming around and it seems each time it does, it has grown in size.

So what is the solution to this problem? Oddly enough to fix this cycle of negativity, we need to talk to ourselves. However, this kind of talking needs to be deliberately thought through and based on truth. The best place to find truth about ourselves is in God’s love letter to us, the Bible.

When I start to spin out, that is when I know I need to grab my Bible and open it up. I usually head for the book of Psalms, sometimes reading it out loud to myself. I love how real and honest the writers of that book were. It doesn’t matter what I am facing, I usually find my feelings mirrored in the words of the psalmists. As I read, my fears and insecurities shrink away.

It takes a lot of work to catch negative thoughts. They have a way of sneaking in undetected. The more we deliberately think about the truth of who God says we are, the quicker we will be to catch them and shut them out. So the next time you find yourself talking to yourself, make sure it is the truth: God is your strength, He is for you, He loves you!

“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.” Philippians 4:8

That is the hope, right? We all want the next year to be a good one, full of health, happiness, love and great things. We tell each other “Happy New Year,” almost with the determination of a blessing, hoping that if we say it with enough enthusiasm it will come true.

The reality, as we know if we have lived very long on this planet at all, is that this year will have ups and downs just like other years have. We can make goals and plans and resolutions, which are all good. However, we know that life can interrupt and change these as we go. The longer I live, the more I am trying to let go of carving my plans in granite. I would like to be able to be a little more relaxed when the unexpected happens and I have to change course. As a problem arises, sometimes like a big wave in front of me, I would like the ability to go with the flow. In fact, I could even say that my goal for this year is to learn how to surf!

The ocean has actually always scared me. Thinking about all the things under the surface that might want to eat me and thinking about floundering around in that vast expanse of water has always kept me on the shore. However, surfers overcome those fears by learning how to stay on top and move with the water.

Life can be the same way. I can allow my fears of what might be lurking just out of sight keep me floundering day to day, or I can trust in my mighty God to take care of it like He promises in the Bible that He will, and I can learn to ride the waves. One of the craziest things about surfers is the bigger the waves, the happier they are. Could you and I really get to a place in life where we laugh with joy as the problems get bigger because we KNOW that our God is going to overcome them? Could this be the year that we surf through life with confidence that with God all things are possible? Now that is the kind of new year I could heartily wish us all.

“With God all things are possible.” Matthew 19:26

I know, after yesterday, the last thing anyone wants to think about is food! However, I have been thinking about the fruit of the Spirit lately. I happened to be reading through the book of Galatians recently and I noticed for the first time that the word “fruit” is singular.

Up until now I had thought of the list in Galatians as just that, a list. Or maybe a staircase, first we are given love, then joy, then peace and so on. Moving step by step on our journey with Jesus. The problem with this thinking, as I discovered the other day, is that it can still lean into the works category of thinking, and it is also incorrect!

The significance of the word being “fruit” instead of “fruits” is that when we do accept Jesus into our lives we are given the seeds of all of this fruit right away, not one by one. In my incorrect thinking, I thought we acquired them step by step as we grew in our understanding of God, the Bible etc., all of which are works-based. In actuality the Holy Spirit does all the planting, watering and growing. We just need to be willing and not hinder His work in our lives and yield to His leading.

So back to the fruit salad. Fruit salad is one dish, but it is made up of several types of fruit, all different. When we eat it, sometimes there might be more banana in a bite or more grapes. I think the fruit of the Spirit is the same, it is one, but as we need a quality such as gentleness, that is what the Spirit will develop in us or have bubble to the surface.

So just as we are still full from our Thanksgiving feasts from yesterday, my prayer for us is that we will also be full of the Holy Spirit and that the fruit of the Spirit will continue to grow in our lives.