My Reflection

When you look at yourself… what do you see? We are called to be a reflection of Christ but oftentimes other things in our lives are being reflected. “As water reflects the face, so one’s life reflects the heart.” (Proverbs 27:19) We should no longer be okay with allowing our circumstances and people to define us or blame them for our struggle. I encourage you to look inside your own heart and see what role you have been playing in your life. 

Follow @imalexaloryn 

Transcript

Copy Transcript Copied

SPEAKER_00 0:00

I'm Alexa Lauren and welcome to my podcast, Heart of a Sika. I'm really excited to be back. I'm excited to share what God has taught me over the last season. And before we jump in, we always open up open up in prayer. And I just want to come in agreement with you. And I just pray for peace. I pray for wisdom. I pray that the Holy Spirit would be part of this message, that he would just use me to share the messages that he wants me to share in the teachings he's been teaching me. I pray that the heart is receptive, that the ears would hear, Father God. I pray that you would continue to minister into this heart, into the Spirit, Lord, that we would continue to seek your face, Father God, that we would want to know who you are, that we would continue to put our trust and faith in you. In Jesus' name we pray, Amen. So today's topic is going to, well, the message of today's title is My Reflection. And the reason I wanted to start off season two with this message, My Reflection, is because last year in 2022, I didn't make any podcast. I was really in a season of just I don't even know what you would call it, but just really God working on my heart. And also a lot of things that I thought I had overcome, so to speak, things that I felt I was stronger than in my own strength, God began to reveal to me through relationship that there were a lot of things that I had not allowed him to heal in my life. And when things like that happen and I go through certain seasons, I tend to pull away and I did not feel like I was in a position to share. I was just really allowing God to minister to my heart. And I think sometimes, especially even if you're in ministry or maybe you work, you're an entrepreneur, you're at your office, and you're just giving your 100% all the time, you think you're in a great place, and then something happens in your life that you realize, oh wow, maybe I didn't deal with this, maybe this hasn't been healed. And it can become like a disruption, and it can become very frustrating at times when we don't know how to navigate the things God is trying to do in our hearts. And it really comes down to us being willing to yield to the Holy Spirit and yield to him to teach us and to show us the areas in our lives that we need help and healing in. And a lot of this came from, I know I've mentioned if you followed me for some time, many of you know I've been married and divorced two times. Both my spouses were believers like myself. And we both had our own relationship with God. Unfortunately, I would say all three of us definitely still cared a lot more about our needs, what we needed, what we wanted, and not really being able to communicate properly to share expectation. And oftentimes our arguments became very unhealthy, very toxic, um, and just not, and and I'm just not saying little arguments, they were just very abusive on different ends. Um, and I'm not gonna call out any one of us because the truth is I'm not trying to sit here and blame and point fingers. But what I realized was I was trying to point and blame fingers before, and I was trying to not see my part fully in these relationships. And so last year I started a new relationship after a year and a half after leaving my second marriage. I had spent that whole time in therapy, I'd been working on myself, and I was thinking to myself, oh, I'm great, I'm good, I'm healed, I'm in such a better place. And I did feel like that at the time. But then I realized there was so much unhealed trauma in my life that I had not allowed the Holy Spirit to deal with. And when I started this other relationship, I quickly saw myself treating this person and fighting with this person the way I would fight in my previous relationships. And the relationship ended briefly, and I realized I really needed to look at myself, that I could not continue sitting here and blaming other people, blaming what I went through, blaming my past, and putting that burden on somebody else. And I think this happens sometimes just not in relationships, but just like new friendships or you know, church relationships, things that we may be engaging in, and we realize like we want to bring our baggage and put it on someone, and then we begin to react or behave in certain behaviors that aren't really pleasing to God. And so during that time, I realized that I was very unkind to this person, and I realized that I really needed to look inside my own heart, and I felt a lot of guilt, a lot of sadness because I was like, I really need to change, and I really need to allow the Holy Spirit to work within me because I can't keep blaming people, I can't be mistreating another child of God because God loves that person as well, no matter what they did, no matter if what they did was right or wrong, I wasn't in agreement with it. It never gives us the right to mistreat another human being because they hurt us. And although it's easy to say that in the moment when we're hurt, we want to spew venom and we want to be nasty to that person, we want them to pay for what they did to us, we want them to hurt like they hurt us. And I realized I cannot change that person. And I need to look at my own heart and I need to look at myself, and I can only work on me. And so that's where the title, My Reflection, came in, because I feel like we all need to look inside ourselves. And considering this podcast is called Heart of a Seeker, it's very much focused on us seeking God and allowing God to work within us. Often I think when we pray, especially when we're unhappy in certain situations or unhappy in our marriage, I remember many times like, God, change him, change them, please, like fix this, deliver them from this. And I don't think I spent as much time honestly praying for my own self to change and for God to heal me and to and deliver me from things. You know, it's so easy to like want the other person to be different or the situation to be different, or you know, if my parents hadn't done this when I was younger, or oh, if this hadn't happened to me, then my life would be different. I mean, it's horrible sometimes. Some of the things we go through that, you know, we did not bring upon ourselves. They just were part of life. And there's other things that we actually walk into ourselves. And so we have to learn that we cannot continue blaming. We're never gonna be healed if we continue to point fingers. We're not gonna ever allow the Holy Spirit to really bring healing in our lives and taking responsibility for our part in whatever has manifested if we don't allow him to. Because if we're always just focusing, and the scripture that actually comes to mind right now is take the log out of your own eye before you take the speck out of your neighbor's eye or your friend's eye. And the reason I think of that is because what is that telling us that God wants us to look at ourselves? It's so easy to be like, oh, well, I don't live my life like that, or I've been doing all these things right, and I've been doing all these, you know, things for others, and I can't believe they did that to me. Well, what did what what was your role in that? I mean, it takes two in a relationship, so we can't just sit here and play the victim of, oh, well, they were just horrible to me. And if that is the case, if you began to see these, these what we call nowadays red flags, if you saw things that you weren't okay with or God was showing you the fruit in that person's life and how they behaved, why did you choose to continue to engage? If you could begin to see that you try to have conversations with this person, you try to speak to them in a calm manner or a kind manner, and they continued to show you that they didn't care about how you felt or how you feel, then maybe you need to reassess and reevaluate that maybe this isn't a person I need to be very close to. And I'm not saying, you know, there are people out there that really are malicious and do want bad, but at the same time, we have to be quick to discern when we need to engage with certain people or not. And so I began to realize that I needed to look back inside of myself. And when I do these podcasts, a lot of the things I teach are things that I have gone through that the Holy Spirit has had to correct me in and help me because I'm by far perfect. I definitely have my daily struggles and things that I continue to struggle in. You know, we all fall short of the glory of God. We all struggle with different types of sin. So none of us are, you know, great or perfect. There was only one perfect person in this world, and that was Jesus. And so we look to him to try to become a reflection. We begin to put take off our old self and put on our new self to allow him to change our hearts, to renew our minds, to minister to our spirits. And when we do feel like we're in these positions at times that are trying us or we feel wronged, or we feel like, why is this happening? Maybe we need to take a moment and reassess. Um, sometimes what I tell my counselor is when I'm really upset and I really want to act out in my anger, I will stop and talk to my self-counselor. So that's the Holy Spirit. And sometimes I'll sit down and I'll just be like, okay, I can go down this route. I could, it would make me feel good temporarily, but then my heart's gonna feel sad because I acted like they did, or I did something that was harmful to them just because I was angry and that wasn't right. Even if my feelings were valid, it didn't give me the right to mistreat somebody else. Or I can choose to just pray about the situation and trust God and also not engage, not allow my anger to take over, not allow myself to get lost down what I call a spiral of thoughts. But instead, I have learned ways to just, you know, distract myself and begin to seek God. So instead, when I get mad, actually, a little bit about me, I tend to clean. Um, I'll just start like cleaning everything in the house, doing laundry, washing dishes, like because I get so much anger and anxiety and I don't know what to do with that energy sometimes. So, what I do is I just begin to put on a podcast and I start cleaning and I allow God to just start ministering to me, speaking to me. Maybe I'll put on worship music and I just really begin to feel a little more at peace to the point where I'm no longer obsessing about what happened and what hurt me, but now my focus has changed, my perspective changes, and I realize you know what? I'm not gonna allow that situation to continue robbing my peace and engaging and giving that person or that situation my energy and my anger and allowing myself to get out of the presence of God because when we began begin to give in to that anger and we begin to give in to what the situation we're going through and give that the attention, and our attention is no longer on God, we begin to struggle with anxiety, we begin to not have peace, we feel very frustrated. And so I know that we need to trust God. It says He fights our battles for us. So I really encourage you when you feel stressed, when you feel frustrated, when you feel like you don't know the answer, it's okay. It's okay to trust and know and believe that God really wants what's best for you. In Jeremiah 29, 11, it says, For I know the plans I have for you, plans to prosper you, plans to give you hope in a future. And so I want to continue uh sharing a couple of questions that I asked myself earlier. When you look at yourself, what do you see reflected back? So when you look at yourself, what do you see reflected back? And I'm not talking about obviously your physical appearance, talking about looking more inside of yourself. What are you, what is coming out when you're upset? How are you behaving? When you feel hurt, how does that manifest? When you feel sad, you feel overwhelmed, you feel like you're having an issue and you don't know how to deal with it? What are those behaviors that you see in your heart? In Proverbs 27, 19, it says, as water reflects the face, so one's life reflects the heart. So how are you living your life? What are the daily choices you're making that are creating this thing we call life? What is it that you are being that is being reflected through your life that is really in your heart? And so my next thing would be asking God to show us the root. What is it that is really causing us to feel so angry? I remember in counseling a couple years ago, a counselor asked me, she was like, when you get angry, is it what that person's actually doing? Or is there something deeper in your heart that it's triggering? And so I pray that we would allow God to show us those triggers so that we can begin to let go of our old ways, so that we can be renewed in our mind, that we can be a reflection of who Christ is by looking at his character. It says that what we reap, we what we sow, we reap. So what we are planting in our lives, what we're doing, we're going to create a harvest out of that. And so if you find yourself in a position in life where you're not really happy with what your life looks like today, or maybe you thought your life would look look different, I would encourage you to look at what choices have you made along the way that have led you to the point where you are today. And have you sought the help you needed? I knew I needed to go to counseling. I knew that I needed wise counsel. The Bible talks about that. There's nothing wrong with seeking help, whether it's through a church, whether it's a psychologist, psychiatrist, whatever you feel the Holy Spirit is leading you to get you the help that you need. But I know that had it not been through counseling in the word of God, I honestly would probably still be create doing the same exact thing I was doing a year ago, two years ago, three years ago, whatever. And so I would really encourage you, if you really find yourself in a place of just not being fully satisfied, know that sometimes our perspective might be off. And asking God, what is it you want to heal in my heart? What is it you want to correct me in? What areas am I maybe not pleasing you that you can show me your way? What how should I behave in these in this manner? And so I know that years ago, again, addressing my anger because when I felt hurt, it often manifested in being very angry. And so I would yell, I would scream, I would freak out. And this is just me being totally transparent. When I made this podcast, I did not want to be fake. I wanted to be very honest about my own personal struggles. And if it helps somebody, that would be the goal. Is hey, I've been there and I struggle too. And this is how God has helped me. Someone who is flawed, someone who is also broken, someone who also struggles, and is not trying to pretend I have it together because I definitely do not. I just know that I don't want to continue my old life. And so daily I have to make a choice to really seek God even when I feel frustrated or hurt at times, because we are human and we do go through things, and it's not does not make you bad when you when you get so angry and hurt and upset, but how are you handling that? Because the word of God says, be angry but do not sin. So there's nothing wrong with feeling our feelings. It's how do you allow those feelings to manifest? And the other scripture I wanted to share was for if anyone is a hearer of the word, but not a doer, he is like a man who looks intently in the mirror at his natural face, and then he walks away and forgets what he looks like. And that's James 1, 23, 24. I kind of paraphrased it, but you can go back and read that. But what I like is it says he looks at himself and then he walks away and he forgets what he looks like. And the note I wrote was we forget our value often and who we are in Christ. And so when we forget who we are in Christ and that he is fighting our battles and that he is there for us, it's easy to want to go back to our natural ways. It's easy to want to go do the things that we know. It's easy to fall into old patterns because that's what feels comfortable for us. It's really hard, really hard to sit down, especially when you feel like you're having a meltdown, and really just have a one-to-one with Jesus and be like, God, please help me in this moment. How should I proceed? What should I do? What if I go down these two paths? One path is pleasing myself in the temporary moment and it's going to make me feel good and happy for a moment. And what is the path if I choose to just trust your will and trust that you want what's best for me, like it says in Jeremiah 29, 11. And if I submit my will and yield myself to you. It's been amazing that the last few times I have had to sit down with myself and kind of had these one-to-ones, um, even in the midst of my frustration. And I'm just like, you know what, God, I'm just gonna do something else. Um, God has really shown me that by trusting him, he can work on another person's heart. Instead of me freaking out on that person, trying to control the situation, trying to feel quote unquote heard, because that's definitely me. I always wanted to feel heard and I didn't know when to just shut my mouth. Um, I realized by shutting my mouth sometimes and just praying to God and just trusting him, it allows him to also minister on the other person's heart because you're not giving fuel to the fire, so to speak. And it's not guaranteed every time because I really believe it really takes two people to yield their hearts to Christ to have a change. But oftentimes I also think of a scripture where a wife is married to an unbeliever and he tells her, Oh, well, the word says win them over with your actions and not your words. And so that kind of sticks with me because me being a person that always wants to share words, I've had to actually practice in this season to keep my mouth shut, which is extremely hard for me because if you know me, you know I love to talk and you know I talk all day long. But learning to shut my mouth has allowed me to stop being giving into, I'm still emotional, but giving into my emotions and speaking out of my emotions. And so it's really helped me kind of calm down and really see things objectively and see things from a different perspective because I go into what I call these one-on-ones with Jesus and praying and thinking, what does his word say? You know, how has me acting out in what I thought would make me feel better, how has that resulted in the past? And did I like that result? And so when you have the moment to stop and think about these things, your perspective really does change, and you actually begin to find more peace in the spirit, regardless of what the other person does or not, regardless of if the situation situation changes or not. So my encouragement to you is no matter where you may find yourself at this point in life, and I know I focus personally more sharing my testimony about my struggle with my anger, struggling with how I have dealt with that with in regards to other people. But I know that sometimes it could look like addiction, it can look like sleeping around, it can look like so many different things, um, alcoholism, drugs, partying. You know, if I'm real, everyone deals with things differently. Uh, at one point I used to do those things in when I was much younger in my early, early 20s, late teens, um, going out to parties, and and that's what I thought fulfilled me and brought me happiness. But I share all this to say that at the end of the day, I want you to think of the scripture in Proverbs 27, 19 that says, as water reflects the face, so one's life reflects the heart. So just remember, look inside your own heart, allow the Holy Spirit to partner with you. If you really, again, find yourself in a place in life where it doesn't look the way you wanted. As you know, the only way something's gonna change is if you choose to begin to change your perspective and this way you see things. And if you feel that maybe counseling helps, if you feel that seeking the word of God is beginning to bring truth into your life, it says the truth will set us free. And often we hold on to a lot of lies in our minds, things that were taught to us, things that aren't necessarily true. And when we begin to break those lies in our mind, we begin to find healing and we begin to find freedom in the presence of God and in his truth. And so I just want to close in prayer. Father God, thank you so much for this message. I pray that it would minister to the hearts of those that you want to minister to. I pray that it would be a word that would fall on good soil. I pray that it'd be an encouragement, Father God. I pray that wherever this person is in their life, that you would bring healing, Father God, in the name of Jesus. I pray that you'd bring strength to them, Father God. It says, for in their weakness, your strength is made perfect. I pray that they would know they don't have to come perfect to you or whole, Lord, but that they can come to you with a heart of just a genuine heart of just authenticity, of being honest of who they are, because it says you already know us, Lord. We don't have to fake it with you. We don't have to lie to you, we don't have to pretend to be someone we're not. You know us, you created us. But what I pray is that we wouldn't be okay staying the same, that we would put on our old self, I mean, take off our old self and put on your Holy Spirit. We would put on your characteristics, that we would seek to be a reflection of who Christ is by reading your word and knowing who Jesus was and knowing his love for people and being able to not give into our emotions and allow those to drive us, but to give into your wisdom to change and transform our lives by the renewal of our mind through your word, Father God. In Jesus' name we pray. Also, if this is your first time ever listening to one of my messages, or you really want to know Jesus in this real and authentic way, and maybe you were taught that you had to follow all these rules, but I want you to know God wants relationship with you. And it says if we confess with our mouths and believe in our heart that Jesus died on the cross for our sins, that he is faithful and just and forgive us and cleanse us of all unrighteousness. And I pray that if you really want to have this relationship with God, you can pray that and confess that you believe he died on the cross for your sins, and he will come and live in your heart, and he will give you his Holy Spirit to guide you, which they call a counselor in the Bible. I pray that you would know him fully and that you would find peace and joy and know that even when life gets hard, it says, In this world we will have trouble, but take heart, for Jesus has overcome the world. So with him guiding you, you know that you're not alone. You have a friend, you have a counselor. In Jesus' name we pray, amen.