<p>Free sharing permitted under the Creative Commons <a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/">BY-NC-ND 3.0 (US)</a> license.</p>

Advent HOPE Sabbath School

Amanda Anguish

Waiting, Patience, and Long Suffering

I'm going to speak on 5 specific things that we're waiting for.

But before I do that, I want to give a little background because what I do, there's a foundation to it or what I speak about when I go places, there's a foundation to it.

And I want you to consider every single person that comes into my office when I'm doing counseling, they all come for the same 2 reasons.

1, they're not feeling the way they want to feel and they're feeling feelings that they don't want to feel and 2 they're doing certain behaviors that they probably shouldn't be doing and they're not doing behaviors that they should be doing.

The interesting thing is is the more we feel a certain way, say depression and anxiety, anger, guilt, all those kinds of things, the more we feel those things it's interesting how we tend to do certain behaviors that might alleviate those feelings initially but actually exacerbate them later on.

So think of the person that might have a lot of anxiety and maybe they use alcohol to sort of get rid of that anxiety.

Well the more you drink, the more now you're feeling guilty on top of the anxiety, so you think you need alcohol more and more.

So we do these kinds of behaviors and yet we don't realize long-term we're actually increasing the negative feelings, not decreasing them.

But the interesting thing with that is that it's actually not our feelings and behaviors that's really the reason that they come in.

It's actually our thoughts that bring us in because each 1 of us has a different way of thinking.

And unfortunately, we don't have the opportunity to sit inside someone else's mind to see how different our thinking is from their thinking.

But before we start, I want you to imagine in your own mind a conveyor belt.

And on that conveyor belt is an opportunity from anywhere between 10, 000 and 80, 000 thoughts going down that conveyor belt.

Research shows there's between roughly about 10, 000 and 80, 000 thoughts that individually we have run through our head on a given day.

Does anybody think they're higher up on the 80, 000 side?

If you're a real thinker and you tend to like you're in your head a lot, if you deal with anxiety you're probably closer to the 80, 000.

But some people, you know, might be closer to the 10, 000.

But that's still a lot of thoughts to have going through your head on a given day.

So as those thoughts are going down that conveyor belt, I want you to imagine that instead of having to think and dwell on every 1 of those thoughts, my dad's laughing and I'm trying to figure out why.

My dad's thinking he's on the lower end of the 10, 000.

But as those come, maybe I shouldn't let my parents, does anybody want to move my parents to the back section?

Because they're going to distract me this whole time, especially my dad.

So as this conveyor belt is going down, see he's going to distract me.

Anyway, so as that conveyor belt is going down and all those thoughts are going by, what most people think is that every single 1 of those thoughts is important.

Well if I'm thinking it, it must be really important.

If that conveyor belt has those thoughts on it, what I want you to consider is that I get to choose which thoughts I want to hold on to.

Or in other words, I want to choose which thoughts I give value to, rather than assume every single 1 of those thoughts is important.

And the cool thing is the Bible talks about this.

Philippians 4 verse 8, thoughts of true, good report, if there be any virtue, if there be any praise, think on these.

The assumption is is we have options for different thoughts that we think, but God's telling us, but I want you to think on these specific types of thoughts or value these thoughts.

I live in a historical part of California.

If any of you have been to Auburn, anybody been to Auburn?

I call it Loma Linda part 2 because we have a lot of people moving up there and I'm 1 of them so I can say that, but that area is historically known for the gold rush.

And can you imagine if we all went down and started panning for gold but instead of actually looking for gold we just dug our pan and pulled it out and then took it down to whoever wants to value it or whoever does that for a living and said, okay, how much is this worth?

And that person would say, all you brought me was sand.

And then for me to say, well, I thought it was valuable.

No, that person's going to say, no, only the gold is valuable.

And I want you to think about your thoughts in that way.

Only the ones that are good, are true, and helpful are the gold pieces.

So as that conveyor belts going down you can imagine only pulling off the pieces of gold and holding on to those versus just any thought going by.

Well in our world right now we have a lot of people who are arguing.

A lot of people that disagree on just about any topic, and I don't want to get political so I'm not going to talk about which topics those are, but if you notice People are not just arguing about problems, they're arguing about solutions.

And I would suggest the reason we don't agree on the solutions is because we haven't yet agreed on what the problem is.

We all have different thoughts about what the problem is.

So we're all going to have different thoughts on the solution.

So we're never going to come together and have the same solutions because we all think differently about the problems.

So I want to take this and I want to connect this to what Some of the things that I hear, and I know this is a university, so I'm assuming most of you are in the student category, although I see a lot of people that were here 6 years ago, so I'm thinking not all of you are students anymore, but I'm glad to see you guys too.

I actually brought an easel, well I didn't bring the easel, but I brought the boards, but I'm not sure that it's big enough to even see.

So if you can see this, this is the first thing or the first thought that I have that I hear as a therapist that students will come to me or young people will come to me and ask me and it's not just an ask but it's a you know something that they're concerned about.

This first 1 is usually the young person that is in the pre-career stage.

And this person will say, I really want to do something for God, but how do I know what this is?

But I want you to consider with this thought that this thought has an assumption behind it and 1 of the assumptions is that I'm actually ready to do that big thing.

That's an assumption or a thought about this.

And so the second 1 that I want to suggest as an assumption to this is that I have to know right now or soon.

So I want to know what, I really want to do something big for God, but how do I know what that is?

Well the assumption is that 1, that I'm ready, and 2, that I have to know right now, right?

I'm tired of waiting for an Adventist guy or girl.

He or she is so much more, you fill in the blank, than all the other Adventist guys or girls I meet and he or she treats me so well.

It doesn't really matter if he or she is Adventist.

Now if we were a smaller group I'd probably ask, but I'm going to tell you what I see the assumptions are.

How I feel is a good indication of how things are.

If I feel tired, then that's an indication that I need to hurry up and do this already.

When I was working in a group home, actually when I was attending Advent Hope, I worked with a lot of teenagers and these teenagers were difficult and 1 of the things they would ask me is, Amanda, they would actually say miss, and they would say, hey miss, are you married?

If I were your age I'd be married already.

The second assumption is that waiting would be emotionally, physically, socially, and spiritually detrimental to my health.

Isn't that an assumption in this statement or this belief?

Also, this person is the only chance I will have at a relationship.

Another 1, I won't have other problems to deal with later.

And then the last 1 I thought of is God cares more about my romantic life than my salvation that's another assumption now the next 1 I want to share with you Had to be resourceful here because I was limited.

There's some assumptions in this statement, or this belief.

1 of the assumptions is feelings are an indication of truth.

Back to Menu

Waiting, Patience, and Long Suffering

Transcript

Sponsor

Recorded

Related

The Health Message

Nutrition “Avoiding Babylon’s Table”

58m

Less Attempted More Achieved

49m

Plenary

Rooted In the Truth

1h 29m

Practical Christian Living

Part 2 - Understanding Personal Problems

1h 14m

Experiencing the Word of God: How to Turn A Bible into Your Bible

Morning Manna

47m

The Way of Love

The Way of Love- Part 7

31m

Healing, Health, and Holiness

Healing, Health, and Holiness Pt. 2

28m

Twin Cities

I Am Anxious

43m

Got Thinking Problems?

Coping with Our Problems - Part 1

1h 13m

Out on a Limb

45m

Why Am I a SDA?

1. Does the Truth Really Matter?

35m

Why Settle for Less?

34m

Sound Doctrine