America Searching: Becoming Slaves in All Dimensions (Line 21)

This is from a 39-line Negative Song I Composed. These Articles Convert the Negatives Into Positive Thoughts and Ideas.

If you don’t think we’re slaves in various ways, try talking with someone who has quit smoking. My brother Tim quit smoking before he died. Or try talking to a reformed alcoholic. My brother Tim was also an alcoholic but hadn’t had a drink in the 10 years before he died in 2002. Or try talking to someone who has been on drugs. Tim was also on drugs for a time in his life. These people will all tell you how enslaved they had been. Tim said he was a slave.

Tim and I were different. I never fought all this stuff as he did. He mostly inherited it from our dad who wanted to share all his bad habits with us. I said ‘NO’ to things dad offered and left home early. Tim hung around and took dad up on all he had to offer, most of it bad. I still drink a couple of glasses of wine a couple of nights a week, usually while playing the guitar and singing. Tim stopped everything cold-turkey.

Now, don’t try talking to someone who is still smoking, can’t put the bottle down, or is still popping pills or snorting something. They have no idea they are slaves. It’s only when we’re freed that we can look back and see how badly we were kept in bondage as slaves.

What We Allow To Be Fed Into Us

We need to see this fact: we become slaves to what we feed into ourselves. And I don’t mean food, although we become addicted to that as well. A human being is like a computer. If you feed incorrect data into a computer, the computer can’t tell the difference and doesn’t know the information is wrong. It just takes what is fed into it.

We’re much the same way. We believe what we house inside of us, whether it’s right or wrong. And in fact, we will believe it more than anything else because it comes from inside of us. They’re OUR beliefs, which are more important than other beliefs. It does not matter if they’re wrong and should be replaced due to user error.

What Is Planted in the Ground Is What Grows

We are the same way as the ground. In fact, John Denver has a song about what we plant, and how we plant. Remember: what we sow or plant into us is what we reap. It doesn’t matter what we plant. What we plant is going to take root and grow. The very first chapter of the Bible says, “Things grow after their own kind.” If we plant weeds, we will grow weeds.

It’s an old saying: “Sow a thought, reap an act; sow an act, reap a habit; sow a habit, reap a lifestyle.” But it all begins in our heads. Our hearts are actually more important and this is why we’re told to guard our hearts with all diligence because of out them grow the issues of life. But it’s true our hearts can’t accept what our heads reject. Our heads are the filter. Our hearts are the reservoir.

“Today is only a delayed reaction of what you thought about yesterday.” Now the timing isn’t as important as the thought. It could be days, weeks or months. Pictures are the language of the mind. We most often think in pictures. And what we visualize in our minds most often plays out in our actions.

A Chat with The Gospel Life Coach

The Bible says, “Without a vision people perish.” The truth is we are meant to establish good, valuable visions and work them out. This goes back to goals. A lot of times, we have to dig up and cultivate the ground before we can then plant something new.

One thing we need to dig up and get rid of is any guilt over yesterday. If we can correct something bad, and do something about it, do it. But more often we can’t, so we need to dig it up and get rid of it.

A second thing to dig up and get rid of is doubt about today. “Whether or not you think you can, you’re right.” Doubt is the opposite of faith.

A third thing we need to dig up and get rid of is fear of the future. As Mark Twain said, most of us have worries that never come to pass.

The last thing we need to dig up and get rid of is a lack of knowledge. There is so much knowledge at our fingertips today on the internet it’s really a miracle. God says, “People are destroyed for lack of knowledge.” As the Gospel Coach, I know the most important thing to know is God and his ways. Working against him when you believe in him is emotional suicide.

How I Summarized This Recently on Social Media

When I studied counseling with NCCA (National Christian Counselors Association) I was troubled that most focus was put on problems people have, and how to correct wrong things in life.

In studying the gospel of Jesus I began seeing how what we allow to come INTO us is what comes out of us. This is clear in ‘The Parable of the Sower’ that speaks of good seed coming into us (God’s positive things). Then good things come out of us (Col 1:5–6). Jesus says no good thing inside of us produces bad things to occur in us (Mat 7:18, 12:35).

This is why I became ‘The Gospel Life Coach’: guiding folks to allow God’s good blessings to come into us so we’d have a lot fewer problems and wrong things about us that might require counsel. The gospel accents the positive things of God so that we have a lot less baggage and problems to deal with and correct in our lives.

This is how we stop becoming slaves in all dimensions!