The Mindset Shift of Light Over Darkness

[00:00:17] Hey, did you know that breakthrough begins when you fix your broken mindset? [00:00:25] I don't know. Do you? Did you know that? Like, really know that? Because I spent a long time trying to get success in certain areas or breakthrough, but not like fixing my broken mindset. [00:00:41] So that's what this is all about, this podcast, and I'm Shana Strange Williams, and this is the Grace and Grit mindset podcast. [00:00:52] And every week we talk about how can we fix our mindset, how can we, according to the word of God? Okay, so this is not like a new age thing where I'm trying to, like, teach you how to manifest your destiny or something crazy like that. I'm. What we're doing here is we are. [00:01:11] We are looking at our messed up mindsets and we are trying to figure out how can we fix them. [00:01:18] And maybe that's not the right word. Not how can we fix them, but how can we surrender more to God and see what he says about that mindset and change it according to what he says? Because really, he's the only one that knows the truth. Right? He's the only one that he is truth. He created truth. [00:01:38] He exists. [00:01:41] Incomplete and just truth. There. There is nothing about him that is not true. Right. He's everything. [00:01:51] And we get our truth from him, from knowing him, even innately. When you look at the way that human beings are made, we innately come into this world with, I would say, a conscience. Knowing what? That it's wrong to kill somebody, that it's wrong to do certain things. We just kind of know these things. Right. And that's because we're made after his image, because he's already created truth and it's the foundation of the world. [00:02:22] And I think that when we're talking about mindset, what happens is we really develop these really unhealthy mindsets when we're younger, probably, and we just carry them into our life and we just, for whatever reason, we just are not getting any breakthrough or we're just keep hitting brick walls and wondering why, you know, why is this happening? Why can I not get breakthrough? Why can I not be successful in this area? Why can I not do the things I feel like God's telling me to do? That kind of thing, you know? [00:02:54] Yeah. So struggling with trying to get breakthrough over and over, or just feeling like you're just. Your life is so much less than what you think it should be. And. And, you know, the answer is not you accomplishing some huge goal with your life. Like, maybe you think, oh, if I could Just, you know, accomplish that huge career goal I have, or maybe I want to get a master's degree or maybe if I could just do that, that thing I've always dreamed of doing, that it feels like it would. Would make maybe fix things. But it. That's not where the problem is. Like, the problem is in the way that you think. [00:03:37] And I've said this before, and I'll say it again, God can only take you as far as your mindset will go, right? So that's why he may spend years fixing a mindset. He tried to do that with the Israelites, 40 years, and they never fixed their mindset. They died in the wilderness. The only ones they got to cross over were the younger ones, like Joshua and the children that. That came from. From that time frame when they were in the wilderness. And that's because the older Israelites were so resistant to God, they were so resistant to trusting him because God was trying to build this mindset of trust, which one of the mindset shifts that we talk about a couple of episodes back, you can go back and find it was the mindset shift of trust over suspicion, right? And so that's like. [00:04:25] That's basic Christianity 101, like trusting God, because trust is a part of faith, and you really can't have faith unless you first trust someone, right? [00:04:35] So those kind of shifts are pivotal, and they're going to change your life and get you to the places that God wants to take you. [00:04:45] Can you manhandle yourself and make things happen? And the old American dream thing, where you just dig your heels in and work really hard. Maybe you could. Maybe you could. I can tell you that's never worked for me. What's worked for me has been surrender, surrender. [00:05:03] Not always fun, but surrender leads to freedom. [00:05:07] Surrender leads to freedom. And so today, one of the areas that I am currently having to learn how to surrender in is one that I want to share with you because I feel like right now this is probably a lot of people are struggling with this. And this is. [00:05:25] Yeah, this. This is the mindset shift of light over darkness. [00:05:32] So the past few weeks, I have been really struck, I would say months even. I have been really struck with this epiphany from God, and I can't even yet articulate it well. So I know it's something he's wanting me to pay attention to. He's trying to show me, but it takes him time to show me because I'm not very smart. It's not him, it's me. [00:05:54] That's Oftentimes why it takes so long for God to teach us things is because we don't understand. [00:06:00] But I've been feeling, and I've been drawn to scriptures about light, about God being light, pure light. [00:06:08] And that's interesting because when you think about what's going on in the world, when you think about, you know, the prophetic scriptures that talk about the end times, that the light, the world would be full of such darkness, it would be everywhere, right? It would almost be like consuming the world. But the light continues to grow as well at the same time as the darkness. So you don't just have, like the light being. Or the world being overtaken by darkness. You actually have darkness growing, but you have light because you have God advancing his kingdom and you have his. His body here. [00:06:48] And so here's what happens, though, is because we can't see things in the spirit oftentimes, right? We can sense things. Maybe we have dreams, maybe we have visions. [00:07:00] Most of what we discern, for me, anyway, comes from a knowing in my spirit. It comes from spending time with the Lord and him revealing things to me. [00:07:11] But you can get so wrapped up right now, because if you're. If you're like me, you're thinking, I think we're living in the end times. You know, I mean, yeah, the end times could stretch on for 100 years, or it could be 20 years, it could be 15 years, it could be 50. We don't know, right? But the escalation right now that we're seeing in the world of darkness, the advancement of technology is all lining up, and you're seeing an escalation in natural disasters. I mean, the flooding that just took place here in Texas was catastrophic and unexpected and took so many lives. And it's so tragic. And, you know, a few months ago, not a month, maybe, maybe six weeks ago, I felt so strongly that the Lord was telling me a lot of natural disasters are about to happen. And I was spending specifically picking up on tornadoes. And I even posted something about it on Facebook. I just posted that, you know, we should be praying against these. These natural disasters or praying that God would deliver people out of them or they would be prepared, that kind of thing, you know, And. And it happened. And they were happening in crazy places, places that are not necessarily Tornado Alley anymore. You know, it was like Kentucky and in Tennessee and just different areas that don't really see tornadoes the way that we see them here in Texas, Oklahoma, you know, Kansas. We see that kind of stuff a lot. But some of these other nation or states are not equipped, or they don't. They don't really have the experience with tornadoes the way that we do here. Not that we're experts, but we know how to. You know, we. We're used to it. We're used to having five or six massive tornado storms that blow through every from April until, like, June. We have, like, you know, constant storms here. [00:09:03] And so I was just feeling that. But then it has escalated, has gotten so much worse. [00:09:07] There's just flooding happening everywhere, earthquakes, you guys know, because if you watch the news, which I'm going to talk about that in just a minute, it's kind of a. [00:09:19] A blessing and a cursing to be able to watch the news. [00:09:23] A blessing and a curse, rather, because it's just. It can. It can inundate you with darkness and overwhelm you. And that. And that was where I was finding myself, was okay. Lord, I'm sensing these things. [00:09:36] When we. When the situation escalated between Iran and Israel, I became extremely. Even before it happened, I was feeling things in my spirit. My husband was as well. We were praying and I was, I was having, you know, I had a vision of some things concerning Israel. And I know a lot of us believers were in a lot of prayer. Those, those. I don't know how long that thing lasted, like 12 days, but lots of prayer. [00:10:04] I knew the outcome was going to be okay because of the vision that God had given me, but it was still. [00:10:09] It was still scary, you know, and. And it really grabs your attention and it kind of puts you in panic mode because you're thinking, are we closer to the end than. [00:10:18] Is this the incident that pulls the trigger, so to speak, and then sets things in motion to where, you know, we're in the tribulation really quickly or something like that. [00:10:30] And so you can really get caught up in the darkness that's all around you. If you're a sensitive person, and I am extremely sensitive, my husband is as well. [00:10:43] We have to be so super careful what we listen to, what we watch, where we go, even specific places, certain cities. [00:10:53] I feel such a weight of darkness in that city that I don't even like to go certain places unless God has me there for some reason, that I'm on a mission or something. But. And I think that's partially the prophetic mantle when, when you have that you are oftentimes bombarded and you sense things and you don't always know how to articulate it or put into words or pray, but you just know something's not right, you know, and so that's a lot of what I've been feeling. And I pray into it and ask the Lord, okay, now show me what this is. But you can get so overwhelmed because it feels so dark. It feels so heavy. We can't see the warfare. We can't. You know, we can't see. See the thousands upon thousands upon thousands of angels that are all around us, but we just feel the weight of the darkness. You know, it's so easy. And I don't really know that. This is something I've been thinking about lately is why we are so drawn to darkness. [00:11:53] We were not made to live in it, right? [00:11:56] But there's a. There's a curiosity to it that it's almost unexplainable, that were drawn to it, you know, I don't know about you, but I find myself oftentimes on the weekend, can't find anything to watch. I'm bored. And so then I'll just start watching, like, I don't know, some kind of crime documentary that, you know, like 48 hours and watch like 20 episodes of it. And. And then before I know it, I'm, like, super depressed, and I feel like the world is a horrible place and I don't ever want to go outside again. [00:12:27] And could this happen to me. And I mean, like, literally, that's. That's how I am. And I realize that some people are not that way, but I do believe that everyone is susceptible to this darkness, and it can come in all kinds of forms. You know, in entertainment, you know, what we're listening to, what we're watching. And, you know, I've been around a lot of believers, and. [00:12:55] And they would be talking about. [00:12:57] These conversations would be going on about, you know, hey, what series are you watching? And. And I would be almost appalled at some of the things that people are watching. And I'm not saying that in judgment. I'm saying that in, oh, my God, if I watch that, I would be so messed up right now. And I don't know if you feel that way, if you have kind of a understanding of, hey, when I. When I watch that, or I do that, or I'm around that too much, it starts to really affect me. [00:13:27] But I've learned over the years because I just have to listen to the Holy Spirit. And I think that's really the bottom line, is everybody has to listen to the Holy Spirit for themselves, and they have to hear what he's saying. Like, if he's telling you, you don't need to listen to that, then you don't need to listen to it. And the thing is, you know, or you don't need to watch it, like, you know, when he's talking to you, right? You don't need an interpreter. You don't need someone else to tell you. Like, you feel like this conviction that you should not be watching that or listening or whatever. And so that's what was happening with me because I was getting into this really bad habit of watching, like getting on YouTube, like literally waking up at 6 o' clock in the morning or 5:45 or whatever time my crazy body wants to wake up these days, drinking my coffee. And instead of like meditating on the Lord or going ahead and praying some, I would jump on like YouTube and I would watch news. I would watch the news. [00:14:23] And it was just, it was fueling like this feeling of darkness, but also contention, anger, frustration. [00:14:36] I could feel myself starting to almost like really be discussing with people all over the world and especially in the US and some of the ways that people are acting right now and behaving. And I just was getting, I could feel it in my heart, just this thing growing, you know. [00:14:53] And so finally I started feeling like the Lord was like, stop, stop, stop. You need to stop looking at the darkness and you need to look at the light. [00:15:01] And His Word is the light. He is the light. [00:15:07] And I want to just read a few scriptures today that, that I hope will encourage you if you have found yourself in this situation of looking at the darkness too much. [00:15:21] The cure for that is, is to look at the light. [00:15:26] Light is, is beauty. [00:15:29] Like God is so beautiful. And when we get to see glimpses of him, it actually takes our breath away. [00:15:37] We cannot even see him in this body because we'll die. There's too much sin in us. But when we stand before him, someday the beauty that we're going to behold, I think we won't have words. [00:15:48] And even now we have these moments where he shines his light on us or his turns his face toward us, or however you want to say it, and you get this glass glimpse of his beauty. Not physically do I see Him. It's something other than that I can't even put into words, that I can't even see with my physical eyes. But I know in my spirit that I have seen something so beautiful that I could stare at it forever and never get tired of it and, and just be so mesmerized by the beauty of God, by the light of his face. [00:16:23] That's what we need to be doing right now. I'm not saying you just stick your head in the sand and never know what's going on in the world because you need to know, but you, you don't need to spend, you know, 75, 85% of your time in this dark place and only coming to God a little bit. You need to be spending more time in the light than you do in the dark. That's what I'm trying to say. Especially because we're called to be a light in the dark world. And how can you if you're so suffocated by darkness that your light is so dim? You know, we have to just get into His Word more. We've got to be more intentional about it and we've got to be at a place where we understand that we have to turn our face to him every single day. Like, and I'm not trying to be, like, legalistic about it, but I find that if I don't get into the Bible every day, and I'm talking about get into the Bible, I don't mean just reading like two verses and, and just kind of, that's good, you know, like a little devotional. And that's fine for some people, and I'm not knocking that. But for me, I have got to get into the Word, I have got to eat. [00:17:31] It's. I'm hungry. I have to have spiritual food and I gotta dig around in it to get what I need. [00:17:40] I have to learn things. [00:17:42] And. And it brings me back to him and his beauty and his truth and who he really is. And. And all of a sudden, all the weight that I feel, the darkness and the confusion and the frustration and, oh my gosh, my problem is so big. How am I going to get through this? You know, all that melts away because I'm face to face with my creator and everything else is so small and insignificant in that moment. So I just want to be a voice to you that reminds you this week, as you're, as you're going through your week and you're feeling, feeling the pull to always look at the dark. [00:18:16] You weren't made for that. You were made to live in the light. Come back to the light. Look at him. Stare at his face, gaze at him and you will find yourself getting balanced again. You'll find your. You'll find the joy coming back, the peace coming back. You'll feel like, okay, actually, I can breathe. Everything is okay. He is here. He's with me. You know, so I. This week, my husband and I were in First John. I love First John, I love what he says about Jesus and the light of God and who he is. So I'm just going to read a little bit here. This is First John, chapter one, verse five. This is the message we have heard from him and declare to you, God is light and there is absolutely no darkness in him. If we say we have fellowship with him and yet we walk in darkness and we are lying and are not practicing the truth, if we walk in the light as He Himself is in the light, we have fellowship with one another and the blood of Jesus, his Son, cleanses us from all sin. [00:19:20] If we say we have no sin, we are deceiving ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. [00:19:33] So I love this because he's saying, hey, when you walk in the light, your. Your sin gets revealed and as soon as you confess it, it's. It's gone, it's forgiven. But if you don't walk in the light, then that's not going to happen and the sin continues to build up in your life and the wall between you and the Lord continues to. And it's not that he put it there, it's that you're putting it there. [00:19:58] He has said there is no, there is nothing in between us. Now all you have to do is accept the sacrifice I gave and my son and, and, and confess your sins and then you're forgiven. Right? But we, if we don't walk in the light, we begin to, to create that distance between us and the Lord. And so, and I know that we love light, but sometimes we forget because we're so drawn to darkness that we'll find ourselves. [00:20:28] I don't know. I mean, maybe it's not for you. It may not be about what you watch and what you hear, but listen, I mean, you. You're in the world, right? So you probably have a job. You're probably around the world system. You're around people who don't know God. You're around just the filth of this world, the sin and the weightiness and the, the. Yeah, the corruption of the world. And I feel like it gets worse on me sometimes. I don't know if you feel that way, but when I come into the house of God or I come into the presence of God and, And I feel like the. The filth of the world is on me. And when he gets it off of me, when I'm with him, I just feel weightless. Again, I don't know if you can relate to that. [00:21:08] So don't let darkness hold you back from walking in the light with him. [00:21:15] Don't feel like, oh, I've messed up so much, or I've got so much sin that I haven't confessed that I can't even walk with him anymore. You absolutely can. The scripture, it says, he's faithful and just to forgive us if we confess our sin. If we walk in the light with him, he's faithful and just to forgive us. I wasn't even really going to go there with that scripture. I was just going to read about God being light. But I felt like, hey, somebody might need to hear that. You are not too far gone. If you have been walking in the dark, all you have to do is turn around and walk in the light and confess to him, and it's that easy. [00:21:51] So let me just read a few scriptures to you about the light of God. I love to do this because I think this really helps. Probably. [00:21:59] I don't know, but about you, but anytime I hear scriptures, people reading them as they continue reading, there's something in it that's so powerful, the power of His Word that it starts to lift oppression off of me and I begin to see better, right? So Here is Isaiah 60:1. Arise, shine, for your light has come, and the glory of the Lord rises upon you. [00:22:23] Okay, Here is John 8:12. When Jesus spoke again to the people, he said, I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life. So I have a question for. For you today, because Jesus says, whoever follows me will never walk in darkness. Are you following him? [00:22:44] If you feel like you are surrounded by so much darkness, my question to you is, are you really following him? Are you really surrendered? Because I think follow, I think surrender, the word surrender would be a great word, synonym almost for follow. [00:23:03] Are you surrender? Are you completely surrendered to him? Because if you are, he's saying, if you. If you surrender and you follow me, you're gonna walk in the light. You're gonna be able to see, right? Why is light so important? Because it helps you see. [00:23:18] I mean, it's hard to live if you can't see. [00:23:21] You can't. You know, part of our experience of being human being is seeing. It's like probably, I think maybe our most important sense that we have, you know, seeing and then maybe hearing, I don't know, they're both super important. But you need light to see. If you. If you don't have Light, it's dark, and you're just groping around and you have. I think that's part of what hell is going to be, is complete darkness. Complete darkness, but still being able to hear. Hear people screaming, hear people in agony, but not being able to see anything and being tormented. That. That to me, is a picture of hell. And I think there's a lot of people who live in that right now because they don't have any light. But Jesus is saying, if you follow me, you will never walk in darkness. I love that. That's John 8:12. [00:24:09] I love Psalm 119. So not only is Jesus the light, but the Word is. Because this says, your Word is a lamp for my feet and a light on my path. I recite that one quite a bit because I know if I can hear his Word, it's going to give me light. [00:24:27] It's going to illuminate the path that I need to take. I get really excited when I talk about some of these Scriptures because they're real for me. Like, if you find yourself in a place where you don't know what to do, where to go, what, you're just lost. [00:24:41] I'm telling you, get into your word. [00:24:44] Start studying the Scripture. Don't just gloss over them. Study them, read them. [00:24:50] You're going to find the light, and God's going to illuminate the path that you need to take. It's just crazy how the Bible, these holy words can apply to so many situations that we encounter in our life. [00:25:04] Okay, here's John 1:5. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. [00:25:11] The darkness has not overcome it. And we all need to be reminded that the darkness has not overcome the light. [00:25:18] I don't care what the enemy says or how he makes you feel or the bullying, the intimidation that you feel to just say, you know what? [00:25:29] This world's going to hell in a hand basket and everything is terrible. Don't fall into that. It's not. [00:25:35] God is busy building his kingdom and we're getting ready for a huge harvest. [00:25:41] That's what we need to look for in this world. That's what we need to be paying attention to. We don't need to constantly look at the darkness that's all all around us, right? Because the darkness cannot overcome the light. [00:25:55] All right, this is Psalm 27:1. The Lord is my light and my salvation. Whom shall I fear? The Lord is the stronghold of my life. Of whom shall I be afraid? So the Lord is my light and my salvation. Whom should I Fear. So if you ever notice that fear and darkness to go together, like they're buddies, they run together. So when it's dark, we become afraid. But when there is light, we can see, and then that fear, it vanishes away. [00:26:23] And the Lord is that light. So Jesus is that light. His word is that light. [00:26:28] And He. He longs for us to walk in that light with Him. And we can have that when we turn our face toward Him. [00:26:37] I love this. This is Daniel 2:22. And really, honestly, I think it'd be better to just read kind of some of this chapter, but for time's sake, I'm not going to. I believe this is probably where Daniel is interpreting a dream for Nebuchadnezzar. [00:26:53] And he says to him, he reveals deep and hidden things. He knows what lies in darkness. And light dwells with him. [00:27:02] Light dwells with him. So he's telling him, hey, this is who my God is. [00:27:07] He sees everything. [00:27:09] He knows what lies in the darkness. And the light dwells with him. He's almost saying, like, he owns light. [00:27:16] He is light. [00:27:18] And I just. I love that. That just is so to me, like, really reminds me how powerful he is and that he owns the light. [00:27:32] Okay, this is first John. I just read this. This is the message we have heard from him and declare to you, God is light. In him. There is no darkness at all. [00:27:40] No darkness. None. None. And I think that's hard for us to comprehend because even the best person that you know probably has some kind of shadow or darkness in them that you don't know about. Or, or maybe you'd be surprised. You know, maybe a secret comes out and you can't believe that that person did that because you thought they were so. So, you know, but that's not how God is. [00:28:01] Like, He. There's no darkness there. There's nothing in Him. [00:28:05] And that's why we can believe Him. That's why we can trust him, is because there's. He's just complete integrity, full of light, no darkness. [00:28:13] I love James 1:17. This is one I just think about all the time. Meditate on this. [00:28:18] Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows. He does not change. He is always light. That's consistently who he is. [00:28:32] And you can. [00:28:34] You can stake your life on the light, that he is the light, and that he does not change. [00:28:41] And that should give you some hope and some encouragement. And then this last One is Psalm 44. 3. [00:28:46] It was not by their Sword. He's talking about the Israelites, that they won the land, nor did their aim or their arm, sorry, bring them victory. It was your right hand, your arm, and the light of your face, for you loved them so. Even in. In this place of battle, you know, his light, the light of his face giving them victory is just amazing to me. I don't know if this excites you, and I hope that if you had a rough week or you're having a rough week, and. And you started out the week listening to news and how awful everything seems and how terrible, and everything's in an uproar, and there's chaos everywhere and devastation and natural disasters and are we going to have a civil war? You know, getting caught up in. In that. [00:29:36] Turn your face to Him. He's the light. [00:29:38] He's the light. [00:29:41] And when you do that, you walk in the light with him and you'll see it from his perspective. He'll show you. He'll illuminate the path. He'll show you what's going on. He'll give you the peace that you need. He'll give you the joy back, all the things that are your birthright as a believer. [00:29:58] Because we live this world, but we live in this world, but we are not of this world. [00:30:03] We live above the world. We live on a different plane. [00:30:08] We live a kingdom lifestyle because we belong to our Father, who takes care of us, who gives us his light so we can see. And I'm even thinking of this scripture, that there will be no sun in heaven because he is the light. I forgot about that one. That's probably, like, the most important one, right? I wish I could pull it up really quick. But he will be the light. There will be no need for sun because he is the light. And he will illuminate everything. [00:30:36] And I think that is so beautiful and it gives me so much comfort. So I hope that this encouraged you today. [00:30:44] I don't want you to feel depressed or are anxious or overwhelmed and walking in the darkness. And sometimes it's just as simple as turning your face toward God. You know, you know how to do that, right? [00:30:57] I think we all know how to do that. We just don't do it sometimes. [00:31:02] So I'm so glad you joined me this week. And listen, you can always go to my website, shannastrange.net you'll find, you know, some resources. I typically post a blog that's related to this podcast, so you could check that out. You can check out my older blogs. You can also see some of my music that I've released and links to those platforms that you can download it and hey, would you like this podcast or subscribe to it or leave me a review that really helps me grow it. Until next time. I'll see you soon. [00:31:44] Hey, here he comes again, riding on the clouds.