“We need to figure out what limiting beliefs we have developed that have us convinced that our ambitions are not available to us. These limiting beliefs come in all shapes and sizes for us. But they have one unifying characteristic- they hold us back....They are the invisible ghosts whispering that we’ll never make it, that we can’t accomplish our ambitions, that we missed our chance. You’ve missed your only chance.” - Bob Goff “Dream Big”
This excerpt has me working through several things right now. Limiting beliefs. I’ll never forget reading in a book by the late Dr. Myles Monroe that faith works positively and negatively. What we believe God for positively will bring positive results. What we belief negatively will yield negative results. For example, since I burned my thigh and landed 2nd degree burns across a wide swatch of my upper thigh, I have had the fear of getting an infection. I find myself staring at this big, ugly wound on my thigh and I can feel the worry creeping up on me. So I have to tell myself that God is my healer. Where did that negative belief come from? Reading Google to find out how to best care for this thing without going to see a Wound Care Specialist since my own insurance won’t cover it properly. Seeing those symptoms and pictures, instantly made me paranoid that something bad could happen with this thing. In this sense, I know where the negative limiting belief came from. I can trace it’s origination, and as Bob says earlier in the book,
“We can’t fix what we don’t understand.”
Other limiting beliefs are not so clear in their beginnings. Where did the voices come from that have told me where my book is concerned:
”Nobody wants to read that garbage.”
”It sucks.”
And still other limiting beliefs speak and tell me:
”You’re not smart enough to be a Principal. Too many things go over your head.“
”You’re not talented enough to be a worship leader anymore.”
”You don’t have that ‘it’ factor that people need to ascend to where they want to be.”
”Your family isn’t farther along because you‘re holding them back.”
Where in the heck did these come from? I’m going to have to really dig in and figure it out, because I’ve already told you that this next decade is going to be the best of my life so far, and I can’t be limited in what I believe. I have to hold true to the unlimiting beliefs that God provides, and the ones that free me to dream big in the ways that God intended. Probably the biggest limiting belief I deal with might be one that you yourself also wrestle with. It is a simple sentence with damning intent. Maybe you’ve heard it screaming as it passed through your peripherals:
”You missed your only chance.“
or
”Your best days are behind you.”
The crazy thing is that I know that these are lies, yet there are seasons of life when I can’t shake them and their detrimental effects. We are all held hostage to something, and usually that something or someone is guilty of harming us for so long a time that we begin to feel an affection for those things/people. This type of misplaced attachment is called Stockholm Syndrome. I come to tell you today that freedom is possible. God can heal. His voice can replace the negative noise, but we have to be willing to do the work. We have to be ready to pick up our shovels and dig through the wreckage of our pasts and presents if we desire to have the future that God intends for us to attain. We have to move away from the low hanging fruit.
Or maybe we need a virus check. You know what I mean, right? The kind that you run on your computer to erase any viruses that you might have picked up over the course of general use? Or maybe from that link that you clicked on in innocence that caused you to get spammed horribly every time you’re trying to be productive? Is this not what limiting beliefs are? They spam us with faith that produces rotten fruit. I think one of the best virus checking programs out there is Psalms 139:23:
”Search me, oh God, and know my heart.”
In my sometimes neurotic ways of thinking, I think about praying this prayer and my anxiety amps up considerably. I mean, I don’t even want to search my own heart sometimes. Scary stuff resides in there. So if I’m afraid, shouldn’t God be?
Nope. He is the only One who is up to the task. And If I, if WE, are to ever be rid of the limiting beliefs that plague us, we need to be willing to allow God unfettered access to our secret place, and then be willing to do the work once He reveals the results of His virus scan. This work is worth it. There is so much more to you than you know. There is so much more to me than I believe.
There is so much more to life.
I vote we live abundantly.
Are you with me? Let me hear you in the comments.