When thoughts turn in to monsters

Have you ever seen a garden gnome?  They seem cute right?  Well, some of them.  Some are kind of ugly, but the one I saw today was cute.  My boys were watching a cartoon this morning that had little cartoon gnomes that looked like this:  

Cute as they look, these little gnomes had an agenda.  They stood on top of each other, put a long black coat on and disguised themselves as a teenage boy to gain the love of a girl they wanted to be their queen.
    When the truth came out and the little girl didn't want to marry a bunch of creepy gnomes, it turned ugly.  These gnomes banded together to create an hideous monster that chased this little girl through the forest.  One sweet little gnome, grouped together working side by side for evil turned into this:

This cartoon reminded me a lot of my thought life.  I have a really bad tendency to beat myself up over a lot of things; bad parenting, not focusing on my marriage, my weight, my lack of obedience....the list goes on and on.  These thoughts, when they first begin, seem harmless enough.  "I wish I would have worked out today."  "I should have taken more time to talk to my son instead of reacting so poorly."  In and of themselves, those little thoughts can be used by the Lord to convict me to do something different the next time.  But I first have to confess them to Him and ask Him if they are coming from Him and what He wants me to do.  That's fail most of the time.  Much like the gnomes from the cartoon, I tend to allow these thoughts to pile on top of one another, never confessing them to the Lord.  Before I know it, they have turned into an ugly beast that takes me right down.  "You will never be good enough to be used by God".  "You will never be the Mom you want to be."   "You will always be overweight and depressed."   That is satan's agenda.......to keep me isolated; to keep me believing I am worthless so I do nothing.

My devotion this morning was from Jesus Calling and says "Rather than using your energy to judge yourself, redirect it to praising Me."  When these thoughts come, and they will, I must first confess them to the Lord.  "Lord, these bad thoughts are coming again.  Are they from you?  If so, tell me what I need to do.  If not, please remove them."  Then turn to Him and thank Him for who He is and who satan is not.  "Lord, thank you that You are the ruler of all things.  Thank you that satan has no power over me and my thoughts."  Then MOVE ON!  Just because a thought comes into my head doesn't mean I have to pull up a seat next to it and offer it tea and cookies.  Kick it out!  And one by one, the gnomes will disappear.

Conviction comes from the Lord.  Condemnation comes from satan.

"Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus"  Romans 8:1

"We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ." 2 Corinthians 10:5

"Those who look to him are radiant; their faces are never covered with shame."  Psalm 34:5