Independence from the Inside Out

By Raquel Soto  

Many times we take our freedom from granted. We go about our daily lives without a care in the world, perfectly content in our routine. And then, one day, something hits us out of seemingly nowhere and we find that we have awoken to a different world.

As I was thinking about what I could share with you this month, I was thinking about independence. It’s not enough to be free. It’s staying free that will continue to take some work.

So what do we do to prepare? There are always outside forces wanting to encroach upon the freedom given to us in Christ. How do we prepare ourselves to not only be free from those things in us that would try to hold us from our destiny, but to stay free from those things outside of us? Or, at the very least, get prepared for when life just happens?

I believe, as in all life’s quandaries, the answer lies in Scripture. The answer to all the above questions is:

For as he thinketh in his heart, so is he…Proverbs 23:7 KJV

What we think is what becomes, at least for our individual lives. We often run after the fruit of the blessing without dealing with the root of it. Often times, we don’t understand that everything begins with a thought.

In our arsenal of warfare given to us in the book of Ephesians, we are given the shield of faith to quench (which means to snuff out and cool) the fiery darts of the enemy. These fiery darts are nothing more than suggestions, ideas, and thoughts. The enemy of our souls has been stripped of all authority and power over us when we covert from this world system to the Kingdom of God. All our enemies can do is try to get one of those darts in. Think of it like a super-bug infesting your soul. If not taken care, it will eventually bring about negative consequences.

Your thoughts start a chain reaction. Your brain is a supercomputer, and a complete organization freak. Thoughts come and your brain wants to immediately categorize it. It looks for ways to put it neatly in a box. If you receive (lay hold of) a thought your brain doesn’t have a category for, it continues to look for the right category or thinks about creating a new one. Dwell on any thought long enough, and it puts in the “think about again” category. So, in this instance, the “bad seed” is doing its work. Its deadly virus is infecting your soul, having you play the commercials (visualization) over and over again. Think on it long enough, it’ll eventually come out of your mouth. Since death and life are in the power of the tongue (Proverbs 18:21), what you begin to say you will eventually believe. What you believe, you will draw to you, whether it’s good for you or not.

When we don’t like what our world reflects, we have to check out the root. Words have power. God never does anything without saying it first, and we were made to function like Him (Genesis 1:26). He’s given us the same authority. He’s also given us the power of visualization. For as we engage our emotions, we create commercials for our future. The more we see the commercial, the more we are prone to believe it’s possible. Once we believe it’s possible for us, and then it’s possible for us. Faith opens the door to what we believe. Fear is faith, it’s just contaminated faith. So you see how it can work both ways. Let me illustrate the power of living from the inside out from the animal kingdom.

There was a beautiful lion that a zoo had. The zoo was expanding the lion’s habitat so that he could roam more freely. In order to expand the boundaries, the zoo put the lion in a 30 x 30 box while the expansion was taken place. The expansion took a little longer than expected, so the lion was stuck in his place, walking back and forth in this 30 x 30 box everyday for weeks and weeks.

It was finally time! The expansion was done and the crate with the lion was lowered. When the lion was taken out, he continued to walk 30 feet one way, then turned and walked 30 feet back.

Although the lion was now free to roam in a beautiful expansive place, his world had become 30 x 30 feet. It was what he learned to be true for him. In spite of the obvious, his 30 x 30 world was all that was true for him.

Do you feel like you are stuck, walking back and forth in a 30 x 30 crate? Could it be as simple as not seeing the possibilities that are surrounding you, waiting for you to expand your territory?

This is the day of freedom. Begin now to put the Word of God (good seed) in your super computer. File it under: Will need it later. You will see the results.

What if you continually visualize God’s Word coming to life for you for 90 days and nothing looks different? Is it not working? Yes, it is! You just can’t see it yet.

There is a Chinese bamboo tree that is watered and fertilized for four years, and doesn’t even seem to grow. There’s no evidence on the top soil that anything is happening.  Do you know what happens at year four? Within six weeks it shoots up to 90 feet! 90 feet! What looked like a waste of time shows the evidence years later. The four years were necessary in order to create a deep root system.

It’s the same with making God’s thoughts your own. It might get boring. It might seem like a waste of time, but sooner or later, BAM! You see the evidence of what you have been planting. What you have been doing in the inside roots deeply into your belief system. When life just happens, you will not be shaken up by it but have the strength to deal with it. You will learn to just go with the flow, perfectly anchored to God, without a care in the world because you know that God loves you and He will do what He said.

God made you out of dirt for a reason. He expects you to purposefully plant seeds and to have fruit from it. You are a walking garden. Guard your garden from being infested from the super-bugs what want to destroy it.

So this month when we celebrate our Independence in the States, choose to live freely from the inside out. All you need has been given. Now go get what you need, and start planting!

Raquel Soto’s Bio

Raquel Soto is an author of two books, The 1 Minute Guide to Health, Wealth, and Happiness: Wisdom from the book of Proverbs and Breaking the Limitations. This prolific writer’s work has been described as no-nonsense and life changing. You can receive free podcasts and articles by going to her website, www.booksbyraquel.com

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