{"id":150,"date":"2017-01-02T06:00:45","date_gmt":"2017-01-02T06:00:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/nextsteps\/?p=150"},"modified":"2017-01-01T21:57:49","modified_gmt":"2017-01-01T21:57:49","slug":"words-shape-reality","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/nextsteps\/2017\/01\/words-shape-reality.html","title":{"rendered":"Which Words Will You Choose to Shape Your Reality?"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_151\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-151\" style=\"width: 300px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-151\" src=\"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/403\/2017\/01\/coaeiuv4unu-christian-langballe-300x233.jpg\" alt=\"unsplash.com\" width=\"300\" height=\"233\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-151\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">unsplash.com<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>The Word of God is vital to you, like a loaf of bread to a starving person, because words shape your reality.\u00a0For proof, go back and read Genesis 1. How did God create the universe? With words. \u201cLet there be light,\u201d and there was light.<\/p>\n<p>Even today, words continue to shape reality. One of the social experiments I\u2019m doing with my daughter who\u2019s two now is every day when I get home from work and she runs up to me and gives me a big hug, I hold her and say these words \u201cLet\u2019s go look at something pretty.\u201d I did this from when she was an infant and couldn\u2019t even walk. Now when I say it she knows exactly what to look for: a mirror. Every day I tell her \u201clet\u2019s go look at something pretty\u201d and then she goes and looks at her reflection.<\/p>\n<p>Why am I doing that? Because I want her to know from her earliest memories that she is incredibly beautiful, just the way God made her.\u00a0Now, if you think this is a bit cheesy, how many of you ladies would have liked to have a father tell you that you were beautiful every day of your childhood? Would that have made a difference in the way that you viewed yourself growing up? Words shape reality.\u00a0Or what if I flipped the experiment and told my daughter\u00a0every single day that she was ugly and hideous? Would that negatively impact her? Absolutely. Why? Because words shape reality.<\/p>\n<p>So, everyday, you get to choose which words shape your reality. Will it be the lies the enemy tells you? Will it be the negative and depressing things you see on tv? How about the photoshopped and unrealistic expectations you see in the media? Or maybe the lies you tell yourself, that you\u2019re not good enough or smart enough or loveable enough to be anyone important in this world.<\/p>\n<p>When you choose to consume the Word, you are beginning to change your life because you are allowing the words of God to shape your reality. You are choosing to listen to a loving, Heavenly Father constantly tell you that you are beautiful, that you\u2019re worthwhile, that you\u2019re important, that you\u2019re loved. I promise you, consuming those words on a regular basis over a sustained period of time will change your life.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Word of God is vital to you, like a loaf of bread to a starving person, because words shape your reality.\u00a0For proof, go back and read Genesis 1. How did God create the universe? With words. \u201cLet there be light,\u201d and there was light. Even today, words continue to shape reality. One of the&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":607,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[31,27,87,86],"class_list":["post-150","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-next-steps","tag-bible","tag-god","tag-reality","tag-word"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Which Words Will You Choose to Shape Your Reality? - Next Steps<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Everyday, you choose which words you allows to shape your reality? 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Josh graduated from New Orleans Seminary with a Masters of Divinity and a Doctor of Ministry. Josh has been involved in full-time ministry for over twenty years. He enjoys hiking, beach volleyball, reading, playing anything competitive, and rough-housing with his kids. Josh, his gorgeous wife Robin, his outrageously handsome boys Zeke, Shepherd and Lincoln and his princess Elle, live in northern Virginia. Josh also blogs on Patheos as New Wineskins: an Apologist for the Modern Church and you can find links to all his content on joshdaffern.com. 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