Imagine if I carried a trash can around my neck. Overflowing and hanging from it are empty plastic water bottles, rusty tin cans, eaten apples, banana peels, old twigs, old CDs.
I carry the trash can wherever I go. How do you think it would affect my life? My friends would be very few. And if I were single, I wouldn’t get any dates — that’s for sure. Or if I were applying for a job, do you think anyone would hire me? It would affect my health because my back would hurt from carrying such a load every single moment. I’d get sick much easier because I would keep smelling and breathing the rotting garbage.
I can do two things: throw the bag away and replace it with a brand-new backpack.
Friends, in reality, we do much worse. We carry spiritual and emotional garbage in our lives. Not just on our backs, but within us, making our lives a huge trash can.
When an evil spirit comes out of a man, it goes through arid places seeking rest and does not
find it. Then it says, “I will return to the house I left.” When it arrives, it finds the house swept
clean and put in order. Then it goes and takes seven spirits more wicked than itself, and they go
in and live there. And the final condition of that man is worse than the first.
— Luke 11:24-26
You can throw out the garbage, but if you do not replace it with good stuff, it will come back, more powerful than the first. But if there’s no more space for garbage, it cannot go in anymore.
Four Kinds of Garbage We Should Not Eat
There are some things in life that we should not eat, that we should throw away. But more often than not, we eat such stuff without being aware that they’re already ruining our body. And this is the reason why we get sick, why we sometimes experience so much misery.
If you want to live a victorious life, you need to get rid of these four toxic things. But don’t just get rid of them — replace them.
1. Replace Negative Stress with Positive Stress
Negative stress is inner garbage. Throw it out!
a. Positive Stress
Don’t remove positive stress! Positive stress is when you have a dream and you pursue it —
your goals, dreams, ambitions, passions. There’s a challenge, and you give your life to it, pour
out all your energy to it. You struggle to reach that dream. But there are people who don’t have
positive stress. They wake up in the morning and say, “What will I do today?” and live a life
of quiet desperation. You don’t want that kind of life, right?
b. Negative Stress
Worry. Fear. Anxiety. Discouragement. Conflicts. When I worry about something, I write down my worry and submit it to God.
Identify the source of your stress and throw it
away.
“Bo, I can’t do that. The source of my stress is my husband!”
I beg to disagree. It’s not your husband. It’s the way you think about your husband.
I once went to the province for a prayer rally. A woman came up to me. She was a smiling, happy
woman. She said, “Bo, do you know that I only have P100 in my wallet and I dropped it in the love offering basket?”
Believe me, I wanted to pull the P100 out of the basket and give it back to her. But she said, with a big smile on her face, “Bo, I know that God will bless me.
All my life I’ve trusted the Lord. And I will become rich!” She was so happy.
Next, a man came up to me and said, “Bo, I own a few businesses.” When he described his businesses to me, I realized I was talking to a multi-millionaire. But then he said, “Bo, please pray for me. I’m so worried about my future. There are nights when I can’t sleep because of my worries.”
You see, stress is not from the outside. It’s from the inside. You can choose not to get stressed.
2. Replace Self-Rejection with Self-Acceptance
There are people who deliberately hurt themselves. Their self-image is so low they make
themselves to suffer. Subconsciously they attract problems and difficulties. Do you know people like that?
I speak with passion about this because I was like this before. I experienced rejection and I kept hurting myself. My prayer before was, “Lord, I do not deserve your love. I do not deserve your blessings.”
I would pray that way constantly.
Parents, would you be happy if you go to your child and tell him, “Son, here’s your allowance”? And your child replies, “No, mom, I don’t deserve it.”
Believe me, there’s something wrong with that kind of thinking.
There are people like that. I was like that. There was a time when I didn’t like myself. When I was enjoying myself too much, I felt guilty. But when I was suffering, I exclaimed, “Yes, this
is me!”
Reject self-rejection. Instead, say to yourself, “I’m enjoying life more and more each day. I’m a happy person.”
Many people are overwhelmed by their mistakes, sins and bad habits.
Let me tell you a story about how I raise my kids. I don’t dwell on my sons’ mistakes. I correct them, I point them out, but I always try my best to look at their good side. In fact, I honor them for it.
When my eldest was small, I thanked God for giving me a great boy. I still thank the Lord to this day when we pray together aloud in the evening. And from the corner of my eye, I see my boy smiling. That’s how I raise my boy. Do you think God is any different?
From the countless emails I receive, I get a few negative ones. In the past, I would get so bothered by them.
One person emailed me, “I don’t like you. All you do is talk about yourself.”
Another said, “Bo, you’re just making money. Why are you charging P500 for the Kerygma Conference? You should be giving it for free so all can attend.”
I asked, “Will you pay for the P2.3 million that we will spend for the conference?”
There’s a cost involved. And by the way, do you know why I like charging people to attend my seminars? So people will give value to it and take it seriously.
Now, I’ve learned to shake the dust off my feet. I’m not here to make everyone like me. I’m here to serve you, not to gain fans.
3. Replace Resentment With Forgiveness
A woman finds out her husband is cheating on her. The woman and her husband got a divorce and the woman goes on with her life hating her ex-husband. One day she found a beautiful lamp lying on the street. She picks it up and rubs it a bit. Suddenly, a genie pops out of the
lamp. The genie says that he will grant her three wishes and that with every wish, her husband will get the same thing — only double.
So, the woman thinks of a first wish. “I want to be rich!” So the woman became rich and the husband became twice as rich.
The woman thinks of a second wish. “I want to be beautiful!” The woman became beautiful and the husband became twice as handsome.
“OK,” the genie says. “This is your last wish so be careful what you wish for!”
The woman thinks real hard and finally comes to a decision. “I want you to give me a mild heart attack!”
You know it’s normal to get angry when someone hurts you. It’s normal for that woman to say I want to have a mild heart attack so that her husband would have a massive heart attack.
If you never condemned, you would never need to forgive.
— Anthony de Melo
You have to go through the stage of being angry. You don’t bypass that. What that man did was wrong. You don’t say it didn’t hurt when deep inside you’re boiling mad. Why not just acknowledge that that person did something unjust? It hurt. But you have to move on.
I talked to another woman whose husband was unfaithful to her. She told me, “Bo, my husband has repented. I’ve forgiven him and I’ve forgiven the other woman.”
I said, “Wow. You were able to do that?”
And she said, “Yes, because I wanted to move on. I had no other choice.”
I loved her answer. Forgiving the other person was a favor she was doing to herself. She was a wise woman. She knew that forgiving the other person meant her own freedom.
Choose to forgive.
4. Replace Sin With Love
Sin is stressful. Any kind of violation in your conscience gives you stress. It leads to a lot of strife and conflict in your interior life. I have a friend who says that when he has committed some
sin, he usually dreams of himself taking a bath. And for him, the dream tells him he should go to confession immediately.
So make a decision now: Be sensitive to God’s voice in the depths of your heart. Instead of filling your life with sin, fill it with love. And if you really listen, you will hear God speaking in the depths of your heart and giving you opportunities to love.
Life can be heavy or light, depending on the baggage that we carry.
Travel light!
______
*from KERYGMA MAGAZINE, DEC 2009 ISSUE
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