Purity of mind

If you have read any of my blogs before this you can see there is a trend with singleness. Not only is it a trend within my blogs, it seems to be a trend with blogs all over the internet. They range from all different kinds:

"10 things 20 something singles should know"
"purposeful singleness"
"25 things that happen when you're single"

I really could go on but you get my point.

I'm not hating on these articles (I mean I really can't considering i'm sitting here writing one about the same topic) But if you are about to quit reading because you are tired of the same old singleness post I urge you, KEEP READING.

Yes, this is about singleness but this article is also going to be about so much more, so please take the time and let's look into what it means to be pure in your singleness

Now, some of you might want to stop reading because you read the word "pure" and you think i'm going to go through a blog on why you shouldn't have sex or go too far with a guy (while I do agree in not doing that I'm not going to bore you with that right now)

I think there are aspects of purity that we are missing.
Why is it that when you hear "purity in singleness" you automatically assume it's going to be about sex? Our brains are wired to connect purity with our bodies, and while that is so very true, it's not where purity stops.

Personally, my downfall in my singleness has not been sexually. My downfall with staying pure while single has been purity in mind.

**DISCLAIMER
I don't struggle with thinking impure or sexual things, what I mean when I say I struggle with purity of mind I mean that I have let boys control my thoughts.

Some examples would be ---->

"I wonder why he isn't texting me back..."
"wait should I have said that"
"Do you think he's flirting with me or no..."

(i'm sure there is some laughter going on right now because while you are sitting here reading those examples you can put a time, place and boy with all of them)

What I want to address is why these situations are toxic

Purity:
the condition or quality of being pure; freedom from anything that debases, contaminates, pollutes, etc.:

When we let those thoughts run wild we are letting a chain reaction occur in our head. Before you know it we have left no room for the thoughts that bring us joy

How could we even think about joy when we are too busy being unhappy because we saw a boy read our text and didn't text us back.

Our minds are being contaminated and before we know it we will look back and realize we have pushed ourselves away from God.

Why are these thoughts toxic?
Not only do they steal our joy and push us further from the truth of God, they leave room for bad decisions.
When we don't have purity of mind, we let satan take hold of our thoughts, we let him lie to us, we let him make us feel empty and broken.
Those feelings will only lead us further down the path of destruction.

So how do we fight it?
Well first is realizing that there is no form of purity that can happen if you are separated from the Lord because he is the only one that makes us pure.
We have to come to him and pray that he transforms our thoughts, but the only way that he can do that is if we GIVE them to Him.

What I want you to see is that these thoughts are normal, but that isn't an excuse.
It's too easy to play them off as "just things girls think about" or "just being a girl"

I beg you to see that thinking these things is damaging to your heart.

Jesus wants to speak TRUTH into you, His unfailing love, mercy and grace are far better things to meditate on than if a boy is going to text you.

Get into His word, pray to Him, surround yourself with a community that is going to speak life into you and affirm that you are a child of the one true KING, who loves and pursues you daily. Who has turned your heart of stone into a heart of flesh and He doesn't want that heart hurting.

Don't be your own cause of heartache because you are letting your own mind tell you lies.

I hope this blog was helpful, and I pray that if you are single right now or even if you are in a relationship you see that there is so much more to staying pure than just by your body. I pray you see that it starts with your mind.

Speak Life

If you were to talk to me about an hour ago, you would have probably heard an ear full of everything that was going wrong with my day. I'll spare you the details because they are irrelevant but
as my head was spinning of all the reason today just really sucked I quickly became convicted of a simple truth that I think we all so easily fall into...

First, too often I let my circumstances change my outlook on my day
and secondly, I am too quick to share my bad days and too slow to share my good

I think if you are honest with yourself you can admit that you fall into those things, or similar ones.

Here's a test just incase you aren't sure:
When someone asks you how your day was, what is your immediate response?
Mine usually sounds something like this.... "there was traffic after class, my professor let us out late, I failed my quiz, it was so hot outside, I'm so stressed out"

Seriously the list could go on.
We have to think, How do those responses shed any glory on God?

I'm not trying to be harsh, and i'm not saying that you can't talk about your days if they are rough, what I am saying is that if our minds are so entangled in what is going WRONG in our day, we are having a selfish perspective and we aren't leaving God any room to show us the GOOD in our day.

There is a difference in talking about your day, in hopes that those listening can pray over you or give you advice and then just straight up complaining. And that Is what I want us all to see.

When we complain about our day we are being selfish.
Yup, I said it and I'm not going to sugar coat it. We have GOT to remember that this life is not about us, it's about HIM and if this life isn't about us then each day isn't either.

Ask yourself, what are you really complaining about? And more importantly what is it doing?
You may be thinking this is extreme, what's that bad about a little complaining?
But when we complain, we are letting our minds continue down a path of negativity

"Set your minds on things above, not on things that are on earth." Colossians 3:2

When we complain we are literally doing the opposite of this.



What I mean by all of this, and the point I want to make is this,

Jesus was not crucified on the cross for us to bicker about every little thing that goes wrong in this world. Jesus died so that we could live a life of JOY, a life that points other people to HIM, that is literally the only reason you are still on this earth.

What a difference it would be if we spoke of our good instead of our bad, if we didn't let our circumstances run our day, if we clung so tightly to the cross that we could remember every single day on this earth is a gift, and every encounter we have with another person matters.

Don't miss out on a chance to share God's love because you are too consumed in your problems.

I'll leave you with this:
If any person had the right to complain it would have been Paul.
Instead of complaining what did he say?

"Not that I am speaking of being in need, for I have learned in whatever situation I am to be content. I know how to be brought low, and I know how to abound." Philippians 4:11

I am not perfect, and that is my heart behind writing this. Because of my imperfections I am going to fail at this, I am asking us all to take action in keeping each other accountable and remember that our actions and words matter.