This morning my darling daughter woke me at 4.30am. (Yawn) As I lay, very, very much awake, hoping that sleep would come, I found myself starting to pray. In my experience, God often wakes me for a reason – to speak to me in the quietness or to ask me something specific. Today, I began praying for my husband who is currently away with work. But God soon changed the subject in my head and I started praying into other things”¦ including my personality type.

I have known for some time that I have an addictive personality. I can get obsessive about certain things for a while. Like Toad of Toad Hall in “The Wind in the Willows,” I can experience “fads” in my life in all sorts of areas – unless I am extremely careful. I have learnt to spot my little ‘crazes’ and try to nip them in the bud.

I think this personality type was hidden from me for years in order to keep me locked into negative patterns of thinking”¦ however, recently God has shown me what I am truly like and given me keys to set me free from those compulsive behaviours.

These kinds of characteristics can seem harmless and even fun, but behind them is something rather sinister. For example we may not realise that we are addicted to “appearing as though we have it all together.” But that is an addiction. It is a mindset that is wrong. We are the body of Christ and therefore designed to NEED each other.

We may think that we need that new teapot or scarf or coat”¦ but we probably don’t. It is because we want to shop, to feel better, to distract ourselves and to forget something painful or annoying for a while.

This is how dangerous kinds of addictions form – because we stop being accountable and real and vulnerable with others in the little, tiny things..
So we find ourselves in debt, spending more than we have”¦ gaining weight, eating more that we need to.. secretly smoking, telling ourselves we will give up soon”¦ having a fantasy about another person, but telling ourselves it is harmless”¦clicking on websites that are harmful to our holiness”¦ the list goes on and on.

This morning God showed me, in the clearest way possible, the way that my mind functions in the natural realm. I have decided to share it with you – in the hope that it helps you too.

Here is what He shared:

“Ems you have a pattern of thinking that goes like this:
When you feel weak you:

Relapse
Regret
Recriminate
Repeat”

This is the pattern my mind and heart can follow when I am tempted”¦

I relapse”¦ I do something I do not want to do and do not like doing. Perhaps it is shouting at my child rather than being patient with him”¦ What is it for you? It will be something different for us all.
The dictionary defines relapsing as “to fall back gradually.” One definition actually uses the word “backslide.” To regress after partial recovery is so easy to do. Why? Because it is almost imperceptible at first isn’t it?
We slide back (not run back, or walk back but slide) into our former state.

This makes us REGRET our behaviour. We despise ourselves and feel sorry and sad. Often though this makes us feel a sense of self RECRIMINATION.
Did you know that the worst enemy you will ever have is yourself. I can promise you I am right on that. You are the only person who treats you so harshly. You are the only one who calls you those names and who is so down about who you are. The enemy does not need to attack you because you are so good at doing it all by yourself!

What happens when we feel this bad about ourselves is that we REPEAT the behaviour. Why not? We have failed, haven’t we? May as well fail again”¦ and again”¦ and again. We deserve to fail because we are FAILURES. This is the lie of what we can say over ourselves.

One of my friends was addicted to Porn. He hated that about himself”¦ but he couldn’t stop because his self hatred was so strong every time he did it. He had no self belief that he would ever be free of the RE- cycle. He knew that once he felt weak and was tempted he would enter this cycle of thought again…

RE-lapse
RE-gret
RE-criminate
RE-peat

What God showed me today is the power of ONE letter.

If you remove the letter A from the word REPEAT, what are you left with?
The old- fashioned word REPENT.
What does it mean?

You may know one meaning “to turn around” but did you also know that in Latin, the word repent comes from the verb REPENS which means to creep forward!

Not ‘slide back’ again but ‘creep forward’. Repentance doesn’t mean everything is easy and you make leaps and bounds towards your goal of personal holiness but it means you creep forward, away from the things that are weighing you down and holding you back.

I found this little download from God incredibly enlightening today and I pray you do too.

Bless you all

Ems