God empowers you, embracing possibilities and taking action
Why is it that so many times we feel trapped in circumstances? We see challenges as insurmountable? We feel like our world is too small and we just don’t have a way out? Has that happened to you?
I woke up to doctors entering my hospital room. I had been for about four months in the hospital at this point. After a septic shock, weeks in ICU, being connected to ECHMO, I had survived against all odds but I was skin and bones, and as you can imagine, I was not there altogether. The doctors were coming to inform me and my family of the prognosis and treatment. When they said I will be bed-bound and chemotherapy for life I was shocked, to say the least. In what I consider a miracle of God’s empowering grace, right there and then, I had the clear thought in my mind” When am I going to know when I’m healing? if every two weeks I should get chemotherapy, and the weeks when I’m not in chemo, instead of recovering, I should be on steroids, How will I know that I’m getting better?
Just think about it, 4 months in the hospital, my family being told to travel so they could see me while I was still alive, being hooked to ECHMO, 8 rounds of chemo while I was on an induced comma… and to have a clear thought in my mind, and not just any thought, but the hope-filled, God-given thought of “I’m gonna get better”, “How am I going to know when that is happening?”. In my mind it was not a matter of IF it happened, it was a matter of when it happened.
As the months and years passed, and the reality of a very slow and painful process of rehabilitation overwhelmed not just me but my family, many times I experienced thoughts like, “I wish I could do this, but I just can’t,” or, “It’s just too difficult and painful”. Or maybe “I can’t afford to continue this process”. What about, “I just don’t know what to do, I have no options”.
It’s common to fall into focusing on what we lack instead of Choosing to open our eyes to possibilities and finding creative solutions to achieve our goals.
What about you? Your situation could be totally different, and I hope it is, but, have you ever found yourself thinking these types of thoughts?
When I was I teenager I went on a cruise. I was in one of those super small rooms almost on the bottom of the ship, you know? The ones that have a small round window to look out. There was so much beauty outside the window, but I couldn’t see it while in the small room. I had to get out of the room and go up to the deck to marvel at the beauty of God’s creation.
Right now in some areas of your life, you might be looking at your problems/issues/challenges, however you want to call them, as a person on a cruise ship looking through a narrow round window. The same happens when you allow yourself to be enclosed in the mental room of your own thoughts and thinking patterns.
Having a mindset of possibility doesn’t mean that you live in La La Land and that you only see the world through rose-colored glasses. It just means that you allow yourself to explore, to see what is possible, and this allows you to transition from what you can see right in front of you, to having hope and courage, which means that, even though you are afraid of the uncertainty, you’re still moving forward.
I think there’s enough biblical evidence to recognize that God wants us to have a possibility mindset. It is not about what you’re able or capable of doing, but what He is able and capable of doing in your life.
Remember, when Moses was in front of the burning bush after he was commanded to go back to Egypt. His answer was, ‘I cannot do it’, ‘Just look at the way I talk’, ‘Just look at who I am’, and ‘See my condition here. I’m a shepherd’. Certainly I can identify with Moses in the fact that many times after hearing God’s calling, I focus on what I don’t have, on my problems, my challenges, not on the One who’s calling me, the Creator God that can make a world out of nothing.
There’s no magic wand to change our thinking, but there is God who has created us with the ability and gift to choose. And, when you embrace a God-given possibility mindset day by day, as you Choose to open your eyes to possibilities and take action, moment by moment more opportunities seem to appear, which in reality were already there but you just couldn’t see them.
You’ll start believing that God always has a solution to any problem, and that belief gives you the motivation, ideas, and energy to move forward toward your goals with confidence in the God who is guiding you.
Like Moses, as we daily choose to open our eyes to possibilities and take action, God will enlarge our cruise ship window, allowing us by faith to see possibilities even when cornered in our version of the Red Sea and the Egyptian army.
And here’s important to note that the possibility mindset in the eyes of the world tells you that whatever you set your mind into, you can do it, and that is not what we’re talking about here.
As followers of Jesus we must live our lives in accordance with God’s will. just like Jesus did and taught His followers to do. When we follow God’s will, nothing is out of reach. We can aim high, but always stay grounded in the plain will of God that we can all find in the Bible!
Our loving Father has a thousand ways to provide for us that we may not even be aware of. When we prioritize serving God above all else, when we align our thoughts with His will, plainly stated in His Word, we will see worries disappear and a clear next step on a path open up before us.
OK, Now that I have summarized for you what a possibility mindset is and what is not, let’s take action following the EMPOWERMENT CYCLE, Explore, Experiment, and Enhance.
You can certainly follow these steps on your mind, but according to Dr. Matthew Lieberman, of UCLA, writing your thoughts down might help you to move the focus of your brain from the emotional side of it to the frontal cortex, which plays an important role in the interpretation, expression, and regulation of emotions.
So, take a pen and paper, your iPad or tablet, and your stylus pen, you can also follow along with the PDF document that you can download at the end of the post, if that makes things easier for you.
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STEP 1. EXPLORE
The heart of the discerning acquires knowledge, and the ear of the wise seeks it out.
Have you ever had mint growing in your garden?
Did you ever leave it unattended on a corner of your side yard, just to find out a couple of months later that you have enough mint to supply the local grocery stores for probably a week?
When you take the time to plant the mint in a container, a plant pot, you gain control over the mint and now you can use it for your benefit.
Unattended mint on your side yard is like those things that you perceive as impossible. When you take the time to write them down (like putting the mint in a container) you can prayerfully think through them and let God direct you as you open yourself to possibilities.
The heart of the discerning acquires knowledge, and the ear of the wise seeks it out. Proverbs 18:15
This verse talks about the the discerning and wise person who is seeking out knowledge, it’s looking for it it’s exploring it’s opening herself or himself to possibilities and to learn.
So, Let’s explore!
Reflect on all the things you think you lack or that seem out of reach for you. Maybe you believe daily workouts, financial freedom, a good marriage, or a better life are just not possible. Maybe it is that side business idea that you’ve been dreaming about.
Write down these scarcity thoughts inside the “Impossible plant pot”. Imagine this as taking a mint plant and putting it inside the plant pot. Throughout your day, try to catch those negative thoughts and instead of ignoring them, acknowledge them and label them as your ” Impossible plant pot” thoughts. Once you realize the sneaky thoughts lurking in your mind, you can grab them before they start causing chaos in your head and in your life.
Giving your thoughts names and putting them in categories is a helpful trick to stop them from spiraling out of control and taking over your mind with worry or rumination.
For example, for some time in my mind it was just impossible for me to make YouTube videos. Way too difficult, what am I going to talk about for ages? At what time am I going to do everything by myself?
But, as I was continuing to trust God and what He can do in other areas of my life, I started growing in my capacity to see possibilities.
These helped me realize that in this area of creating valuable content, I could take steps to move forward.
Next thing you know, a consultant from the local SBDC office started helping me out providing general guidance and resources. I bounce off ideas with her and step by step I’ve been moving forward every week to put in place a system that will allow me to consistently create content to serve people.
When you choose to open your eyes to possibilities and take action, little by little, day by day, you are training your mind to see challenges and problems as possibilities, as opportunities to grow and thrive and this is exactly what you need to do to become a possibility thinker.
STEP 2. EXPERIMENT
Test all things. Hold fast to what is good.
First, choose one of the thoughts you recognized and planted on your ‘Impossible plant pot’. Then, think about what are the one or two steps that you can experiment with this very week, to start fostering a possibility mindset.
In my example of creating video content, I started experimenting and that has been the only way I could find out what I need, and what I don’t. In the beginning, I thought I needed a beautiful office setup, perfect hair (that will never happen), this software, that light, by giving me the chance to try things out I’ve realized that I don’t need those things at this moment.
Experimenting, trying out things that might aid you in fulfilling your vision, is the only way you can know what works and what doesn’t. And again, having that vision of what you know God is calling you to do, and creating the systems, and routines, or habits to accomplish that vision, will motivate you when you realize that something is not working and will help you pivot so that you are willing to make a change or try something different.
These are just 3 examples of areas in which you can experiment choosing to open your eyes to possibilities and take action.
your home organization by getting rid of clutter and leaving emotional and physical room for present and future possibilities. Your media choices: by reviewing or auditing what kind of messages come into your mind with what you choose to listen such as the books you read, the videos you watch, accounts you follow. Determining what are those things that foster openness to change and possibilities and what are those that don’t. Or, you could work too in the area of social support network honing in the relationships that foster your relationship with God and your possibility mindset.
Pray about it, see where God is already leading you, and move forward by faith in the God of all possibilities!
STEP 3. ENHANCE
For this very reason, make every effort to add to your faith virtue; and to virtue, knowledge; and to knowledge, self-control; and to self-control, perseverance; and to perseverance, godliness; and to godliness, brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness, love.
We already explored thoughts and areas of your life you need to grow a possibility mindset.
Then, we experimented taking action in the area of choice. Now, this is the step where we improve or optimize our possibility mindset by taking the time to learn what worked, and what didn’t as you were experimenting.
Just draw a line on your paper or iPad and write down on one side what worked, and on the other side what didn’t. Then, decide if you want to continue exploring those actions or if you have some other ideas that might work in choosing to open your eyes to possibilities and take action.
There are some powerful questions that can help you enhance your possibility mindset. Ask yourself, “What can be possible in this situation?”
And my two favorite ones, I use almost every day: “How can I continue to move forward today?” “What is possible for me today?”
Following along with my example, I have to bring my vision back every time something that I thought would work, doesn’t. I want to share what God is doing and has done in my life to inspire and encourage women in their own struggles and hurdles and that keeps me trying, that keeps me going. My why keeps me going, and as I keep seeking for knowledge and asking God wisdom, I will get to determine the system that will work well in the season that I’m in. And as season changes, as I continue to pursue God’s will, I get more clarity on the how of my vision, and the resources at my disposal, I’ll continue to pivot, to optimize, to ENHANCE.
Just a month after I published my first workbook, I was having a conversation with a friend and I mentioned it to her for the first time. Her response was, ‘I have so many books in my home. I don’t know what to do with them and even some of them I have bought and I have never read.’
She’s an old-time friend, so I know that she was just being honest, and her comments were not directed at me, or my hard work of many many months that took me to put together the workbook. So I didn’t take it personal.
When I first felt called to put together that resource, if I had chosen that there were too many workbooks out there, too many resources (and that is truth). If I had chosen to close my eyes to the possibility and God’s calling, I would have missed the opportunity to reach people with the assurance of the love, care, and reality of God. So I’m so glad I Chose to open my eyes to possibilities and took action.
Thinking in terms of possibilities means trusting in God's promises, believing in His plan, and being confident that He can do incredible things.
God can empower you to Choose to open your eyes to possibilities and take action. It’ll take time and effort, but when you choose to take action and move forward His direction, day by day, allowing God to renew your mind through intimate time with Him hearing Him through His word, and speaking to Him through prayer, intentionally opening yourself to the existence of possibilities, you’ll start to see the world in a different way and the world will see you also in a different way.
DOWNLOAD YOUR FREE POSSIBILITY MINDSET GUIDE