Distract The Enemy

The enemy tries to creep in whenever possible. We have to learn to not allow the enemy into our lives. A couple recent personal examples I will share with you are sometimes for me it has been hard for me to trust people and make new friends because I have had in my mind that  "they don't really want to be my friend, maybe they just want to be nosy or maybe they are up to no good or, they will only hurt me in the long run. If they know the real me they won't like me" . When at church sometimes I have people approach me and speak to me and these are people that I would of never thought would be my friend before. Maybe in my mind I thought I wasn't worthy to be friends with these people. This is a very bad, and wrong way to think about yourself. We are all God's children and we are worthy and of value but, when I have allowed my mind to drift this way I was allowing the enemy in my mind and have control over my thoughts as I allowed one negative thought, it would only grow to many more negative thoughts. I struggle with this often but, not as often as before because now I know who I am. Now, I know that I am beautiful, worthy, valuable, and I am a new person. I am not going to stay down any longer when the enemy tries to creep in; I speak out loud that this isn't true at all and leave my head! It then vanishes from my mind but, every now and then tries to come back. I pray, speak out loud, read the Word of God, listen to some music or I call a positive friend. This all helps distract the enemy and then helps me focus again. It is sometimes a battle, sometimes this may take a bit but, it goes away when I distract. The old person I was would end up staying down, maybe drinking excessively, maybe doing drugs and maybe other negative things but, that is the difference of who I am today. I know that I do not have to choose that path any longer and I refuse to. 
     Another example, I will share is I have a ten year old daughter that normally doesn't want to play outside too often since she has an ipod. She always wants to play her ipod and lately I have been noticing this to be a problem. I have been praying that her interest starts changing and maybe she will want to play outside with some friends. When I was a young kid we had no choice, we had to play outside. But that's another story. Today a neighbour came and asked if she would go outside and play with him and his siblings. I asked if she wanted to but, she hesitated. I said, "you should go play for a bit, get some fresh air". Then she said okay. I was so happy. Shortly after she was outside playing I had a bunch of negative thoughts trying to creep into my head. "What's she doing out there? What if something happens? What if she gets hurt?" I knew these weren't thoughts I should had been thinking, we are supposed to socialize and enjoy human interaction, not technology all of the time. But, the enemy once again was trying to put these toxic thoughts into my head. So, I spoke out loud to leave my head. My daughter is fine and told God I know that He is protecting her and then instead of pondering, I started organizing her room. A couple of hours went by and her room was organized and the thoughts were no longer there because I once again DISTRACTED the negative thoughts and did something positive. God does not want us to think this way, He wants us to think Good things because He is great and loving and positive! I'm pretty sure many of you know the battle I am talking about here, do you distract your thoughts? What do you do when you have negative thoughts in your head? Which path do you take?

Read:
2 Corinthians (NLT) 4:4,
Satan, who is the god of this world, has blinded the minds of those who don't believe. They are unable to see the glorious light of the Good News. They don't understand this message about the glory of Christ, who is the exact likeness of God.

2 Corinthians (NLT) 4:16,
That is why we never give up. Though our bodies are dying, our spirits are being renewed every day.