S11.04 | What Are You Focused On? Shifting Your Thoughts to God’s Peace
What you focus on shapes your life. Focus on fear, and fear grows. Focus on God, and peace grows.
In this episode, Carla invites you to pause and consider what’s been consuming your thoughts lately. Through biblical wisdom and practical tools, Carla teaches you how to shift your gaze from distractions, lies, and worries to Jesus—so you can experience the peace only He gives.
Whether your mind feels stuck on problems, pain, or the past, this episode will help you refocus and step into God’s promises for your life.
Did you know that Carla is a Christian Mental Health coach?
See if working with her is what you need in your current season.
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Key Takeaways
What you focus on grows.
TrWhen your thoughts are fixed on fear, anxiety, or lies from the enemy, those things take root and grow. But fixing your eyes on God allows faith and peace to flourish.
2. God invites you to refocus your mind on Him.
Colossians 3:2 reminds us to set our minds on things above, not earthly distractions. True transformation begins with a shift in focus.
3. Practical steps help you fix your focus daily.
Practices like gratitude journaling, meditating on Scripture, and limiting negative inputs help you renew your mind and align your thoughts with God’s truth.
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Foundations to Healing—-> https://www.carlaarges.com/foundations-of-healing
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Resources:
5 Steps to Building Resiliency
Affirming Truths Facebook Community
5 Tips for Overcoming a Negative Body Image
Who You Say I Am Biblical Affirmation Cards
TRANSCRIPT
0:02
Hey, friends, welcome to this episode of affirming truths. I am your friend and your host, Carla, and I'm so glad you're here with me today.
0:12
I want to ask you a question that God has been asking me lately. You know, there's so many heavy things happening in the world, in addition to the struggles we go through as Christian women, moms, you know, struggling in our mental health, struggling through trauma,
0:33
facing opposition from the enemy, as we work towards our healing. And you know, really, where we set our focus shapes how we think and feel and live. And today, I want to ask you an important question that God has been asking me,
0:54
What has your attention right now?
0:59
What has your attention right now?
1:03
Are you wrapped up in things of this world that is feeding anxiety, depression, overwhelm, restlessness,
1:17
or are you focused on things that produce in us, the fruit of the Spirit, joy and love and patience, self control.
1:34
I think for many of us, we are like Peter, right? We have all the best intentions. We're excited for Jesus. We have all the best intentions. We see him walking on the water in his glory, in his power, and we want to be close to that. And we're like Peter saying, if it's you, call me out, I'll walk to you. And in that excitement, and in that initial thing, bit of trust, we take that step out of the boat, and we start walking towards our Lord. We're walking on water, and then
2:10
the waves come.
2:12
Life happens.
2:14
The news gets a hold of us,
2:17
and we start to sink, because where are we looking right now, not at Jesus, not at his glory, not at his sovereignty, but in all the ways that we see sin impacting the world and all the ways that we see brokenness in the world and in Our lives. But here's the encouragement for you today, it's never too late to shift your gaze back to Jesus and align your vision with his truth.
2:53
Have maybe you've heard this expression because I've said it before. What you focus on grows when you focus on fear. You become more fearful. When you focus on God's word, you become more faithful.
3:08
Focus acts like a magnifying glass.
3:12
I remember a couple years ago, we were in the market for a new car, and we went to the dealership, and we're looking at this car that I'd never heard of before or seen before, and as soon as my focus was on this particular type of car, and, you know, looking at all the features, weighing the finances, you know, taking some time to think about it, all of a sudden, all I saw on the road, everywhere were these types of Cars, even though I hadn't paid attention to them at all. Why? Because this was something I was focusing on. And therefore my vision to see it grew.
3:51
My vision to see it grew because it was acting like a magnifying glass. I remember this true too in the early days of my marriage, when we were trying to get pregnant, and not that we struggled, it just still didn't happen as fast as I would like it to. And in those months of trying, I just saw pregnant women everywhere. Why?
4:19
Because I was holding the magnifying glass over fertility and pregnancy.
4:26
So what happens then, when we focus on
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all the way the world is falling apart? What happens when we focus on
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all the ways we feel discouraged? What happens when we focus on all the ways our plans aren't coming to fruition? What happens when we focus on all the ways people have hurt us? You know what? We start to see more pain, more evidence of people hurting us. We start to see more brokenness and.
5:00
And with that, it impacts how we think, how we feel and how we live.
5:09
I always say to my clients, and I say this on Instagram all the time, we were made to be overcomers, right in Christ, we are overcomers, and there are so many Christians today that are not living an overcoming life. And yeah, you can understand it if you look at the trials that they faced, however, you can't understand it when you look at how big their goddess, when we look at the trials, sure, we can understand being overcome and overwhelmed. But when we fix our eyes on Christ and all that he's accomplished and what he says to be true, wow. All of a sudden the spirit within me starts to awaken. All of a sudden, the Holy Spirit within me starts to get my attention.
6:01
What are you magnifying in your life right now, your problems or God's Promises, promises to provide, promises to comfort, promises to give you rest.
6:16
What are you magnifying in your life right now?
6:20
Because listen what our thought patterns are absolutely ties into our emotional regulation. And in my one on one coaching, I work with women that struggle with emotional regulation, that they become dysregulated really quickly, little things that will trigger them and send them spiraling. Well, a lot of our thought patterns, and there's neuroscience here as well. When they're well worn thought patterns, they happen almost automatically. And for some of us, we have trained our brain to magnify the problems. We have trained our brain to magnify the fears. Now, yes, some of that might be a product of trauma, for sure, that hyper vigilance that arises, but then we have to retrain our brain right to focus on God's promises. We have to retrain our brain to focus on the yes and amen of who Christ is and who we are in Him.
7:20
You know, one of the best nervous system regulators is Christ himself. I just did a whole course on regulate your nervous system. It was a four week mini course that I did in June, and we went through a lot of practical tips and tools on how to regulate your nervous system. I taught them all about the window of tolerance and our limbic brain and our prefrontal cortex brain. I really taught them the science behind why we get dysregulated, why our nervous system becomes dysregulated. I taught them the science of how to become regulated. But the end, what I shared with them is the truth that the Holy Spirit is our great regulator.
8:02
The Holy Spirit is our great regulator. And if we look at the instructions that the Bible tells us, we see a whole plan of how to rewire our brain. When we look at the Scripture, we see a whole plan of how to emotionally regulate, right? Think on things that are pure, think on things that are good, forgive, rejoice, always be thankful.
8:29
These are all things that help us to magnify God's presence in our life over the presence of our trials.
8:40
The trials are going to come. This is the human life. The human life is filled with trials you can't escape it. The trial itself is not a commentary on on you, right? The fact that I have bipolar is not a commentary on me, sure. Of course, some of our decisions can lead to our trials. Absolutely, if we are not a good steward of our finance and yeah, we can find ourselves in financial trouble if we're not a good steward of our health, absolutely, we can find ourselves in trouble with our health. For sure, we have to be
9:19
excellent, godly stewards of what He has given us. That includes for your work too. Like for me, I have to be a steward of this podcast. I have to be a steward of the women that come into my programs and my courses and my coaching. Like we have to be a steward of these things. But even the best stewards are going to face trials because that is the human experience in a broken world. So what are we going to fix our eyes on the trials that inevitably come
9:53
and always then be spiraling and anxiety and doubt and fear and.
10:00
And overwhelm,
10:02
or are we going to set our sights and magnify God's promises and his work in our lives? Because if we focus on the right things, we can see God's fingerprints all over our lives, even in our lowest spots.
10:21
God invites us to fix our thoughts on him, not because our circumstances are perfect, but because he is perfect. He is perfect in Colossians, three, two, we're told to set our minds on things above, not earthly things. Why? Because God would know what would happen when we set our eyes on earthly things and set our mind on earthly things,
10:49
we would miss out on all he has to offer us.
10:55
And so I come up with three simple ways to fix your focus faith rooted tools that take your eyes off the circumstance and onto Christ and the first one is to practice gratitude daily. This is such a big thing for me. In my one to one coaching kits I send out, I include a gratitude journal, and it is something that I expect them to adopt as a habit, because when we are forced to think each and every night about three unique things every day, that we're grateful for all of us that in our focus shifts when you Know you have to come up with things that you're grateful for. All of a sudden you start to be a detective in your life and focus on, where can I find things to be grateful for? And when you magnify that, all of a sudden, you see God's fingerprints in everything.
12:00
So I want to encourage you each night, write down three ways you've seen God's hand in your life that day.
12:09
Number two, limit, what pulls your attention away from God? Maybe you need to take a social media fast. Maybe you're you're going down the rabbit hole in social media, maybe you need to set boundaries around things that are negative influence to you. Maybe you gotta stop watching the news. Maybe you gotta, you know, re, re evaluate some friendships that are rooted in gossip. You gotta limit what pulls your attention away from God, limit what takes your mind off of things above and onto earthly things.
12:51
And the third thing is to meditate on Scripture.
12:55
To meditate on scripture, to rehearse scripture. I know when I was a kid, I had to memorize scripture, and there are some scriptures that I have as anchoring verses in my life, because I memorize them as a kid, before I had six concussions, and memorization is really hard. Now, I stick them on sticky notes around but meditate on Scripture. Scripture reorients your heart back to God. Scripture reorients your gaze back to God.
13:31
In Isaiah, 26, three, he says, You will keep in perfect peace those who mind, whose minds are steadfast because they trust in you. How do we have a steadfast mind? We fill it with the Word of God.
13:48
That's how we have a steadfast mind. And what is the reward of having a steadfast mind? God's perfect peace.
13:58
What does a steadfast mind produce trust in God, so that when circumstances come, we do not bow to them. We're not overcome by them, we don't fixate on them. Why? Because our trust is in the Lord. Our minds are steadfast in the Word, and we are gifted his peace in return.
14:25
So I want you to pray about this, you know, ask the Lord what's been taking center stage in my life that doesn't deserve to be there. What would it look like to fix my eyes on Jesus instead? I really want you to journal that pray about it. Invite the Holy Spirit into the process. Give him, ask him to give you eyes to see what needs to be pruned so that you can live the overcoming life.
15:00
Life
15:01
of a Christian, rooted in Christ, steadfast in who he is,
15:07
in my affirming truth for you today is I will fix my eyes on Jesus and experience His perfect peace. And I'm going to take us back to Isaiah 26 three, you will keep in perfect peace those who minds are steadfast because they trust in you
15:30
guys. If this episode has been encouraging, challenging, but in a good way, I would love for you to leave a review or share it. It's such an important way for podcasts to grow and reach more women, and I appreciate your support of affirming truth and of me. And if you ever need any advice or guidance, please send me an email, hit me up on Instagram, I'm always available to speak life into you and to point you back to Jesus. All right, friends, be blessed. You.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai