Questions & Answers
by Editor(s)

Q. I need help in knowing how to break old habits. Now that I am seeing that I am a Christ/I and that He is living my life, I have certain things that I do and ways I do things that I don’t believe are Christ. My dis-ease with these things I take as the Lord’s conviction for me to make some changes, but I am not having much success. Here is an example: I am a wife and mother of 3 teenage children. I believe that it is right for me to be up in the morning to prepare breakfast and lunches for my family but I usually sleep in, and they have to fend for themselves. There is a franticness in the household when I do this. When I take my rightful place in the morning things go much smoother and everyone gets a better start for the day. Please tell me what I can do to get this part of my life going right.

A. I am sympathetic because this was a hard thing for me when my children were younger. Mornings with children getting up and off to school are normally chaotic and, for the most part, not fun. This generally puts people in a bad, grumpy mood to begin with. No one would look forward to getting up to all this. But the answer lies in what you choose to believe about your situation. The Christ life is not designed to be easy and a lot of it is not pleasant. Christ came to lay down his life and ultimately die for a lost world. He wasn’t here to please himself and to avoid the hard things. He told us that we find life through the experience of the cross (He who will follow me must take up his cross daily and follow me). The cross symbolizes death–physical death? probably not–but a death to our whims and comforts and a choice to be for others.
This works out in a practical way by living moment by moment. When it is time to get up, say to yourself, "All I have to do this moment is get out of bed–Christ/I can certainly do that." After you are out of the bed decide the next thing to do. Maybe it’s to take a shower. The first thing you do to take a shower is walk to the bathroom. Christ as you can easily do that. Now turn on the water. Talk your way through it step by step. It will work if you break it down and at each step say and know that Christ as you can do it. Take no thought of the next moment–live in the present moment–its all you’ve got. He in you is sufficient for each present moment.
Dare to try it–I’ve never known living like this to fail and I’ve been doing it 17 years now.

Q. Is there such a thing as a bad mood? I want to know what to do when
I feel like I am in one and how do I keep from living that out.

A. Just like everything else, the bad mood idea starts with our believing. We have to be believing some negative thing to be in a negative (bad) mood. Of course we always start with the negative–I don’t like this, I’m afraid of that, things aren’t fair. This negative feeling (bad mood) is our perfect negative that can, if we choose to see it the faith way, push us right into the positive. We have to practice the obedience of faith to do this. We must look at what we are believing and then change our believing. We start by having ourselves the center of our thinking–me, me, me or I, I, I. The secret is to change the "me" and "I" to "Christ/I." Christ is not afraid, overwhelmed, treated unfairly. Things are exactly how He wants them to be and He can handle any circumstances that He has put Himself-as-you in. Because you are He in your form, you are sufficient for anything life (really God) brings your way. As your believing changes feelings will change too. But if they don’t, do what has to be done knowing it’s Christ, in spite of your mood. The Bible says everything comes to me by my Father’s hand.