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Make room in your thinking
God told His people: ‘Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past. See, I am doing a new thing!’ (Isaiah 43:18-19 NIV). If we’re asking God for a vision, or to enlarge the one He’s already given us, we need to make room mentally. ‘Enlarge the place of your tent, stretch your tent curtains wide, do not hold back; lengthen your cords, strengthen your stakes. For you will spread out to the right and to the left’ (Isaiah 54:2-3 NIV). Somebody once said that dreams always come a size too big so we can grow to fit them. We shouldn’t settle for second best in our work, our relationships, or our walk with God. Mark Twain said: ‘Twenty years from now you’ll be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do than by the ones you did. So throw off the bow lines. Sail away from the safe harbour. Catch the wind. Explore. Dream. Discover.’ Whatever we feel is holding us back – whether it’s our background, education, skills, self-esteem, confidence, or something else – God can enable us to rise above it and put an end to our old ways of thinking and feeling we’re defeated before we’ve even started. In biblical times, animal skins were made into wine containers. At first they were flexible and easy to work with, but over time they grew rigid and lost their ability to expand. That’s why Jesus said, ‘No one pours new wine into old wineskins. [It] would…burst the old skins…New wine must be put into new wineskins’ (Matthew 9:17 CEV). God won’t infuse an inflexible mind with fresh ideas, but He will change our lives when we line up our thinking with His.
What Now?
Write down a dream that God’s given you. Now write anything that’s holding you back from making a start on or continuing with that dream. Ask Him to give you a fresh mindset and help you align your thoughts with His.
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