I have been spending a lot of time this month watching videos provided by the West Virginia UMC as an option for our required continuing education. These videos have been offered because in-person continuing education opportunities have been limited over the last 2 1/2 years. Obviously, the challenge in “binging” is remembering. I am counting on my gift of remembering and recalling to retain the most important parts. Obviously, every part of every video and booklet is not equally important. In many of the videos, including the last one I just watched, the presenter has acknowledged this by saying, “…what parts of this program do you wish to remember?”
One of the things I will remember is really a reinforcement of something I think I already knew: Every person has thousands of thoughts every day, most of which are negative. If you can identify, you can take comfort in knowing you are not alone. Everyone else, like you, has thousands of thoughts each day. Most others, like you, find most of their thoughts unproductively negative. The root cause for most of us is that we focus primarily on our critics, our own areas of weakness, and the reality that we must acknowledge our sin in order to be saved.
The difference for followers of Jesus is that, even as we know we are right to acknowledge our sin, we must also acknowledge we have been forgiven by the sacrifice of Jesus. While that can make me sad at times, that I caused Jesus to sacrifice Himself for me, I must not believe all the negative accusations of the emeny of God.
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