Overcoming Limiting Beliefs

From Les Hughes

We all listen to different voices. One of life’s challenges is listening to the right ones.

I’ve preached before at the Alumni Chapel of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, where  they have a huge three-sided balcony. The building was modeled after the sanctuary of the old downtown First Baptist Church of Atlanta, Georgia.

In that type of building, for good or for bad, the main level of people are surrounded by the people in the balcony, or gallery.

Remember the old men in the Muppets? Statler and Waldorf sat in the balcony seats, full of cantankerous opinions and heckling the performers on stage. The actors and singers like Kermit and Gonzo were wise to ignore the old men.

If we’re not careful, we can pay too much attention to the Statlers and Waldorfs in our lives. Based on our past experiences, we may have developed negative patterns of thinking that affect our present.

A Limiting Belief From Middle School

Jon Sanders recently shared a limiting belief he had to overcome in our podcast, Turn Your Wound into Your Superpower. In middle school, the speech therapist at his school decided Jon’s speaking voice was not sufficient, and he needed to participate in speech therapy. Looking back, he says it may have been just for her to try and justify her job!

Jon shares, “So for several months, while my friends were having fun playing dodge ball in gym class, I got pulled out of gym for an extended season of speech therapy. The only reason I went to school was to eat lunch and play during gym!”

Though he doesn’t think anything was actually wrong with his voice – and he didn’t see any marked change because of the time spent in therapy – he internalized a message: “I don’t have a good voice. That’s what’s wrong with me.”

Years later, as the Lord began calling him into arenas of ministry requiring the regular use of his voice, he had to confront that limiting belief.  He had to choose to not listen to that negative, heckling voice in his balcony.

For years now, Jon has been prolific at preaching, speaking, and podcasting. God called him to use his voice to encourage, inspire, and motivate other people to embrace life.

The Voice of Truth

Sometimes the enemy attacks us in the very area where God wants to use us. We need to remember that the enemy is at his very core a liar and does not speak truth.

We have to choose to listen to truth. First, we listen to God’s truth. And then we continue listening to wisdom that comes from wise people and helpful resources.

At times, the very place where we were wounded or tested becomes the place God chooses to work.

Welding Our Broken Pieces for Strength

I had a friend tell me about a lesson learned from his grandfather, a welder. While watching his grandfather weld, he saw that when two broken pieces were seared together, it left a disfigured bubble. His grandfather explained to him that the bubble is now the strongest place on the entire frame. He said, “It may break somewhere else, but it will never break there again.”

Sometimes we need to prayerfully revisit some of our broken places. They can be windows of the soul that give us a glimpse into our lives. Are there negative patterns of thinking, wrong ways of believing, or flat out lies that we subtly latched onto and embraced during those times?

If so, let’s take them to the Father, asking the Holy Spirit to shed His light afresh on them. We may just need to reject some of the heckling comments we’ve been listening to in our mental galleries and instead insert a new recording!

For more on breaking through limiting beliefs and getting in the mindset to succeed, grab this free guide: 3 Steps To Break Through Your Upper Limit Challenges Around Money.