Thoughts fill our heads and who knows how many of them are actually our thoughts? They come from somewhere, but where?

If you were to take each thought out, hold it in front of you like a piece of laundry, and examine it, you might discover that many of those thoughts are not actually yours at all. Rather, they come from someone else.

Perhaps some of them may relate to a value judgment someone in your past has made. Judgments that may even impact how you view yourself. Harsh words can rattle around in the echo chambers of our minds for years at a time if we let them. And over that time, they can transmogrify themselves into conclusions that impact our identity.

"You're not as attractive as your sister," becomes "I'm ugly."

"You'll never amount to much," becomes "I'm stupid."

"Your brother is the standout of the family," becomes "I'm average."

And over time, we mistake someone else's thoughts for our own. They become our reality.

As I moved into adulthood, I took an inventory of the thoughts ricocheting around in my mind. I'd read The Bondage Breaker and I just wanted to be rid of any extra baggage that I might, perhaps without even knowing it, be carrying around with me. Where did they come from? Were they grounded in reality or were they really someone else's distorted perception of reality? Was the enemy of my soul using those words to weigh me down?

I'm so glad I asked those questions and got free. God wanted to supply the answers that I'd been finding elsewhere. Life is complicated enough without having my mind cluttered with thoughts that aren't my own.

How about you? Why not take an inventory today and get free? Let the Father, your creator, talk to you about who you really are and why you are. He wants to complete the exchange and bring us to an awareness of those thoughts that are not our own, trading the reality we're living with for his.