I looked at my life and I evaluated where my negativity comes from and realized that it's in my own home, with my family. We don't always see eye to eye and they don't understand the choices I make in life. My siblings and I live completely different lifestyles even though we were raised by the same people, in the same house, going to the same churches, hearing the same things, I just turned out different. None of us learned how to deal with each others' differences so sometimes when we speak our mouths become weapons of warfare. The Bible does say that death and life are in the power of the tongue(Proverbs 18:21). So,I figured that I would pray as soon as I wake up, in the middle of the night, and when I wake up to start my day. I also pray before I walk back into the house. I started to look for scriptures to encourage me in this fast and while reading The Power of a Praying Woman by Stormie Omartian, I found a scripture that made me want to speak positive things. The scripture was Proverbs 16:24, "Pleasant words are as an honeycomb, sweet to the soul, and health to the bones." That encouraged me to speak only things that are positive.
After reading that scripture, I started to pray that God would cleanse my mind of all negative things and fill it with those pleasant words, those uplifting, encouraging words. Then, later on that night, I was asked how I was fasting and I mentioned the scripture I had come across and the young lady told me that she didn't know where to find the scriptures, so I mentioned the book and she asked me to share.
I began searching for scriptures on positivity and I noticed that all of the ones I found were dealing with the mouth, my weapon of warfare. Eventually, I came across Matthew 15:11, "Not that which goeth into the mouth defileth a man; but that which cometh out of the mouth, that defileth a man." I understood what the verse was saying but I needed to know much more than that and began to read around the verse. I started at the beginning of the chapter and by the time I got to verse 20, I was so convicted and began to pray. Verses 18-20 reads "But those things which proceed out of the mouth come forth from the heart; and they defile the man. For out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies: These are the things which defile a man: but to eat with unwashen hands defileth not a man." That thing right there messed me all up. Here I am, praying that God would cleanse my mind of all the negative thoughts that I speak before I think and this stuff is coming from my heart. It made me realize that my heart is ALL jacked up and that bothers me.
For years, I have been trying to find out how to get closer to God and my heart is what's stopping me. My prayer last night was that God would uproot all that negative stuff from my heart, drown it with His love so that it will overflow. The Word says in Ephesians 3:20 "Now unto him that is able to do exceeding abundantly above all we ask or think, according to the power that worketh in us." If I can imagine my heart overflowing with love, what will God do about that? The thought of that made me happy.
Today is Day 2 of the #NoNegativityFast and my focus today is the cleansing of my heart. So I'll be singing songs such as Renew Me by Martha Munizzi, Create in Me A Clean Heart by Donnie McClurkin, and songs like that. I'll be searching for more scriptures and meditating on the ones that I have come across thus far. I encourage everyone who is doing this fast to think about their lives and where the negativity is coming from. Have a blessed day!!!
Until Next Time...
Sista T