What if the biggest thing holding you back isn't your circumstances but the way you're thinking about them?

In this episode of Faith Fueled Living, we're exploring what Scripture says about renewing your mind and how your thoughts influence your emotions, your relationships, your faith, and the direction of your life.

If you've been stuck in negative thinking, discouragement, fear, or constantly expecting the worst, this episode offers practical biblical encouragement to help you shift your focus back to God's truth.

You'll discover why what you repeatedly notice, believe, and speak matters, how gratitude changes your perspective, and simple questions you can ask yourself to interrupt unhealthy thought patterns. You'll also learn how prayer, Scripture, and intentional mindset shifts can help you experience more peace, hope, joy, and confidence in God's promises.

Whether you're walking through a difficult season or simply want to develop a healthier mindset rooted in faith, this episode will encourage you to think differently and live with greater purpose.

In this episode you'll learn:

• Why your thoughts shape your daily experience.
• What the Bible teaches about renewing your mind.
• How to recognize negative thought patterns.
• Practical ways to replace lies with God's truth.
• The connection between gratitude, hope, and joy.
• Questions that help you shift your perspective.
• How your words influence your faith and those around you.

Remember: you can't always control your circumstances, but with God's help, you can choose what you focus on.

Join us for Joy Camp Summer here - https://kristinfitch.com/joy

Grab the Rewire Your Mind: From Negativity to Joy- download here.

Grab the Joy Rising- Daily Gratitude & Joy Journal here.

Download My Free Joyful Living Devotional: https://kristinfitch.com/devotional

Ready to take your first step towards a more joyful, faith-filled life? Download our Reignite Your Passion Workbook and start living with purpose today!

Takeaways

• Your thoughts influence your emotions, actions, and spiritual growth.
• Renewing your mind begins with recognizing unhealthy thinking patterns.
• What you focus on becomes more noticeable in your daily life.
• Gratitude changes your perspective and strengthens hope.
• Speaking God's truth over your circumstances builds faith.
• Scripture provides a foundation for lasting peace and confidence.
• Hope grows when you intentionally look for God's goodness.
• Small daily mindset shifts can lead to lasting transformation.
• Your attitude affects not only your own life but the people around you.
• God invites us to replace fear, worry, and negativity with truth and trust.

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Hey, friends, and welcome back to Faithfield Living.

This is your host, Kristen.

Today we're going to dig into what is it that you're looking for, what is it you're noticing, and what is it that you keep saying over your life?

Because those things impact what it is you're going to see and what it is you're going to get.

So let's dive in.

Welcome to Faith Filled Living, the podcast for women who want to find joy again, grow closer to God, and rediscover the woman he created you to be.

I'm your host, Kristin Fitch.

Each week you'll find encouragement, honest conversations, biblical perspective, and practical tools to help you experience more joy, purpose, and peace in everyday life.

Because the woman God created you to be is still there, and it's never too late to come alive to the life he created you to live.

What's wild is when we change what we're focused on, when we change what we think about, we change our life.

But we also change the lives of others.

When we show up in the world with joy and hope, when we show up expectant for things to happen to us or to be part of good things, other people want to know more about us.

They want to know who we are and what it means to be Christian.

So today we're going to dig into this, and I'm going to share with you a couple things that you can ask yourself or think about and a couple quotes in a scripture that will help you maybe realign your thoughts and what it is you're looking for, so that when you show up in your day, you will.

Let's see.

I love this statement.

You will have a hopeful expectation of the good things to come in your life, and obviously, from our perspective, good things to come in your life, because God is participating in it.

He is fully present, and he is orchestrating the things that are going on.

But when we are hopeful for the future, when we're hopeful for how God's moving in our lives, and when we look for that, we shift how we show up into the world.

And one thing that I want to share with you is what Chef Jose Andres, and he's also a human humanitarian, said on one of the Netflix chef shows.

And I forget the name of it off the top of my head, but he Says I began to realize if you give people the spark of possibility, that spark becomes a big flame.

And he was talking about the earthquake in Haiti and how he was.

He basically sent humanitarian teams there to feed them.

But in other words, he's saying that when we give people hope, right, even the smallest little crack of darkness or despair or whatever someone might be going through it, it does.

It anchors our soul, like it says in the Bible.

And so we want to have that hope in our own lives.

We want to look for the things that God's doing in our lives, but we also want to share that hope by the way we show up in the world, by the way that we're encouraging people by the things we're doing.

And so this is really twofold.

So the first question is, what is it that you're looking for?

Or what is it you're trying to confirm in your life?

What do I mean by that?

Well, as you go through your day, if something happens to you, like, you're frustrated, you're stressed out, you're rushing, you're late for something, maybe there's more bills than income at the end of the week or the end of the month, whatever the thing might be.

Maybe you're struggling in one of your relationships, but do you find yourself saying this to yourself?

It could just be internally, of course.

This happened to me.

It's another thing.

This always happens to me.

I'm always sick.

I never have enough money.

This person's always a pain in my behind.

In other words, are you affirming that the thing or the circumstance has the power?

Are you affirming that you're always not on the side of good fortune?

You're not on the side of health, you're not on the side of strong relationships?

You're.

Do you see what I'm saying?

In other words, are these the thoughts that are running through your head?

Are you.

As soon as something happens to you that maybe isn't what you would have hoped for, do you all of a sudden kind of go with that narrative versus are you looking for the things that are in your life?

Are you.

Are you looking for the things?

Are you looking for confirmation that God's moving in your life?

And so the first thing I say is, we need to flip the script.

In other words, pay attention.

What are the thoughts coming through your head throughout the day?

What are the things that you are speaking into your life and then notice?

Are you looking to confirm everything that's happening to you?

And sometimes we call that a victim or a victimhood mentality, meaning I'm just, this life never works out for me.

Or maybe you're not that.

Maybe you don't say things like that.

But the point is, are you looking to confirm the goodness of God in your life or are you so focused on the circumstances?

So when I say flip the script, what I'm saying is, where can you look for confirmation that God's moving?

Where can you look for confirmation that God's present in your life?

And then where can you look for confirmation that things will work out for you?

Or in that life is working and God is working for your good?

Maybe not in that moment, maybe you don't see it yet, but one of the things the Bible tells us to do is continuously give thanks and praise.

He also says, believe it, you know, and you will receive it.

In other words, you can't keep speaking, struggle into your life and then think it's going to be something different.

So we want to speak to the power of God and to his promises.

We want to speak to the goodness of God.

We do not want to speak our, that our circumstances have more power than the Creator of heaven and earth.

And it's so easy as a human to do this.

For instance, if you're struggling, let's say that you're having a hard time, maybe you're at a lull in your marriage, or you're just feeling like you're not communicating well right now with your child, your spouse, whatever it might be, it's so easy to focus.

Or maybe you have a diagnosis, right, a health diagnosis that just feels like it's never going to be better.

But are you so focused on the thing like, my child's never going to come back to us, or my child's never going to find a relationship with God, or I'm never going to get better?

You know, if you're, if you're so focused on the circumstance and that it's in control, how can you ever believe for healing?

How can you ever believe for your child to come to faith or to know Christ?

Or do you see what I'm saying?

In other words, we want to focus on God and His promises.

We want to focus on what he tells us, the blessings he says that we have a right to that are shared in the Bible.

And there's examples given to us.

So first is, you need to start asking yourself, are you looking for confirmation for the good, for the positive, for the hopeful, for the joyful?

And let me be clear, oftentimes we're going to find these things not in the big picture, we're going to find them.

In the moments, we're going to find them.

If we notice between the lines, what do we mean by that?

Even if you're dealing with a really difficult health challenge, what good has come from it?

What have you gained?

Is it perspective?

Have you learned something?

Have you met people along the way that showed you just the kind of kindness you just didn't even know?

I mean, like, you hadn't experienced it in your own life or not in that area.

So we have to, in other words, see it all, not just the main thing that's consuming our thoughts sometimes.

And so just like at work, if there's someone that you're.

You're either a project's frustrating you or a person's frustrating you.

Like, what's behind it?

And where could there be a gift in that.

That circumstance, that lesson, whatever it might be.

And one of the ways that we continue to have these hopeful expectations of good things to come is we get in the word, we get in God's presence.

We step out of our day or our circumstances throughout the day, you know, to say a prayer.

Lord, be with me.

Lord, give me wisdom.

You know, say scripture, say a prayer, step into nature, go on a walk, hold someone's hand, give them a hug.

I mean, people that I just meet, I give them hugs.

Like, life is short.

Hello, we are now connected.

Like, just start filling yourself with things that matter.

Stop focusing on only the circumstances.

I don't mean that everything about life is lovely and wonderful.

Of course we're gonna worry is gonna creep in.

Difficult things are gonna come through.

All this stuff happens.

But when we start realizing that we're stuck there or we keep going back there, that's when we want to bring it to God and keep praying over that.

Every time I start getting a thought, like a worrisome thought, anxious thought, or.

Or a thought of something like, not good happening in my life, it could be someone in my life.

Like, I just have, like, that panic feeling all of a sudden, like, oh, my gosh.

Like, what if this happened to my son?

I immediately cast it out and I say, lord, take this away from me.

I know it is not from you.

I do not want these thoughts because I can go there, right?

I can.

My thought, my mind goes there.

I've shared on some other episodes recently.

We just moved one of our sons that recently graduated college halfway across the country.

And it's.

It's been really hard now.

It's been better since he's been there.

We talk to him pretty much every day check in.

I'm feeling obviously a little bit better about it.

And I know he's growing so much, but it's still hard as a mama to send your kid to a place where he doesn't know a soul.

Yes, he's starting work and he, you know, he has co workers and things, but like, he literally doesn't have that person.

Like, if something were to happen, he needed to go get checked or something.

There is no one that we know yet right near him that we can say, like, can you go get him?

Can you go check on him?

That is a tough feeling.

And I know a lot of you have been there and you've walked through that.

I let myself have the feeling or, you know, let the anxiousness come upon me, but then I'm having to work really hard to pray over him, pray over his hope, pray over his circumstances and just, you know, pray for peace at his home, his workplace.

Like, in other words, I'm just covering him as much as I can.

I'm also just continuing to pray that I will have wisdom and that God will give me wisdom, that he will give me, you know, my mind renewed, remove that anxious and that worry.

And you know, in other words, I'm just having to step up my prayer.

I'm having to step up asking God to just help me through this.

Because this is new for us, right?

It's just been a.

Actually it's only been two weeks since he, since we've left, since he got there.

So, you know, this is super new.

But my point is it's the same thing.

I have to remind myself and I have to keep getting back to being hopeful and having a hopeful expectation of good things to come for my son.

I already see some changes in him immediately because he went from living at home, he didn't go away to college, he'd commuted.

Like, this is the first time he's lived on his own and he is adulting so well, before he left to get everything set up, his utilities, you know, he's making all his meals and yes, before he would like cook eggs in the morning and whatever.

But big change to being, you know, a sole proprietor, provider for yourself in the sense of like, you have to go buy the toilet paper, money runs out and go get the groceries.

And my point is I have to keep reminding myself that God does not want a spirit of worry and fear for us or for us to have for our children.

He wants us to know and claim those promises he has for us and that good Things will come yet through this hard transition he is changing into, you know, becoming.

He was already an adult, right?

He's in his early 20s, but becoming hopefully the God, the man God wants him to become.

And he, if I'm going to be fully honest, he is my son at this point where he's not really sure how he feels about God.

But once again, I just going to keep praying over him for that.

I put a Bible in his house.

I haven't even told him where it is yet.

But my point is I'm going to keep on praying for that and that God will show himself and be so.

It's so obvious and clear and that he will be surrounded by people of faith, right?

And so once again, I have to focus on the future and the good things to come for him and not focus on the what if worries.

But it's hard, right?

And it's hard in our own lives.

And so once again, like I said, I want you to flip the script.

Think about what it is you're speaking of yourself.

What is it your internal, internal dialogue is saying?

And then what is it that you're, you're looking for?

And so how we see the world, how determines how we respond to it.

So not only what do you think is true, but what is visible and what's invisible, like what's really going on?

And then are you misreading and mislabeling the moment or the situation?

In other words, my spouse is always whatever, right?

In other words, are we over exaggerating a feeling we have for a moment about the circumstances?

I shared in my last email an example of this.

I was sharing some things that brought me joy.

In the last two weeks, my husband and I just went on an anniversary trip.

It's become something that we now do yearly.

In the past, we would do it every couple years when our kids were younger, growing up, and maybe we'd go to a bigger place because we weren't taking very many, you know, as many trips.

But now that our kids are all over 18, we've kind of made it a tradition as much as we can to go on a trip, just the two of us.

And usually now we just, we often just drive somewhere, you know, so within two to six, seven hours and spend three to five nights just being able to slow down, rest, connect, you know, all the things and.

But what I was going to say about that is in this email, I was saying some things that brought me joy.

And one of them was just when I pay attention, I slow down enough to notice that my husband, every single day is showing up for people.

Yes, he works hard, so that's the first way.

But well beyond that, there's many days where he's doing stuff until 9:30 at night.

So he gets home from work and he's helping one of our sons or he's helping me, or he's working on a house project.

Actually, he has one he's been working on for nine months.

He's close to finishing.

Or he's helping his parents or one of his sisters.

He's helping a friend or whatever it might be.

But my point is that brings joy to my heart because I see that even though he's not a man that likes to speak about God or his faith, outwardly, very often he's more of an introvert in many ways.

But he shows it, shows it by his actions, this unconditional love he has for people.

And he almost always does it with a, a willing heart.

Right?

Like he's never once said, like, I don't know, I'm too busy, or I have other plans to help our sons with whatever it might be, changing their oil, getting gas, like helping them with some project.

So that brought me such joy.

But when we focus on those things, instead of like, he left all his stuff at the front table and he doesn't pick it up for a week at a time, do you see him saying like, yes, that can still be like a little irritant, but in the big scheme of things, that is not the story.

The story is actually the man he is and how he's providing and caring for us and everything else.

It's not like, does he do things?

Just like, I'm sure I do things he doesn't like.

But this is what we're talking about.

Like, what are you seeing?

What are you looking for?

And are you continuing to tell yourself the part of the story that's just one detail instead of looking at the big picture, instead of looking at what God's weaving through your life.

But in the email, I also shared the idea that when we get, when we have a grumbling, we want to replace it with three things we're grateful for so this can be with your spouse.

And actually I share, I've shared in the email before.

There's a couple that I follow that talk about marriage and they have a podcast and they have an Instagram and they talk about this concept.

And of course I talk about gratitude a lot.

But they talk about if you're frustrated with your spouse, like, instead of staying there, like, say, Three things you're grateful for.

And the Bible tells us to do this.

Not in those words exactly.

I shared before the grumbling.

Give gratitude.

And what do I mean by that?

As soon as that thought comes into your head about a co worker, about your spouse, about your circumstance, stop and say three.

Three things you're grateful for or write them down.

What happens here?

Well, when we shift into being grateful, we start showing our brain.

We.

We show our brain the proof that, or the confirmation or proof that our life is not that circumstance.

Our life is not that moment where we felt irritation or frustration or whatever it might be.

This happened to me the last morning of our anniversary trip.

The whole time we were there, we got along great.

Like, there was no little tiffs, nothing.

Right?

It was just.

It was just very relaxed.

And we just kind of.

We did a lot of just relaxing reading.

We played a game.

We would go down to the beach.

We rode our bikes, you know, to the next town.

But the morning we were leaving, we took, you know, we took our time.

Like, we didn't get up at the crack of dawn.

Like we had so many other days in the last two weeks.

But what happened is we had bikes on the back of our cars, so I couldn't just go down and pack the trunk easily.

We were going to have to go through the middle of the car to get to the big cooler to pack it and put our suitcases in.

But because of that, and then we were parked.

This was a really tight parking lot, so we're parked right beside a car and then beside a fence, so you couldn't really even get in the car.

Well, now, had we been able to, then I would have just put stuff in, you know, as my husband was getting ready.

But we couldn't.

So I asked him, like, hey, do you think you can move the car?

Because then I can start working on packing the cooler and all the things.

We were on the third floor without an elevator, so we didn't bring the huge cooler up that far.

So we were going to have to take a couple trips.

So anyways, he starts getting, like, frustrated or, like, stressed because I'm trying to.

I guess he felt like I was trying to hurry us up and I wasn't.

I just.

I was already ready.

And I just thought, well, I'll just start doing more stuff as he's finishing breakfast and then getting.

Getting ready.

Anyways, the point is, is it kind of caused the stress between us because he's like, well, no, I just want to wait until we're pretty Much ready to walk out the door, and then we'll pack the car.

So it's just the way we approach things differently.

I'm like the person that, when I'm going on a trip by myself, like, if I'm driving somewhere, I, like, pack my car the night before.

Like, I have it all ready.

It's organized.

And he's usually so busy and going from thing to thing that he will do it right as we're leaving.

But we just operate differently.

So my point is, we were getting kind of just like, annoyed at each other a little bit.

So I had to pause after a little while of this going on and just, like, calm myself down in the sense of, like, Kristen, this is really not a big thing.

Just because you wanted to do this thing doesn't make it what needs to happen.

And then I just reminded myself of some of the wonderful things about my husband.

Like, I didn't say them out loud to him.

I didn't make a big thing of it.

I just paused long enough to say, like, you know, like, shut your mouth and just think this through.

Like, your husband is so good at all these things.

And, like, a lot of times he even drives the whole trips, even though I offer, and I do drive sometimes.

But anyways, so I did, and we were fine.

We got the car packed, we got out of there, and the trip home was.

Was fine.

It was lovely.

But this is what I'm talking about.

It's so easy to get caught up in a moment and then turn it into this thing or turn it into this conflict.

And I'm not saying that never happens in our lives.

But what I'm saying is, how do we shift that so that we remember that God is saying to us, I want good things for you.

I want you to have a peace and a calmness.

I want you to, you know.

Know what?

Know and live what I'm promising you.

And I love this quote by G.K. chesterton.

Let me see if I can pull it up here.

And he was a Christian.

I don't know if you call it.

Well, let's just say a Christian author.

But, I mean, he.

I don't remember if he's an apologist or what he was, but he says this.

And the more I considered Christianity, the more I found that while it had established a rule and order, the chief aim of that order was to give room for good things to run wild.

How good is that?

I mean, I love that, right?

That end of that is for good things to run wild.

I mean, how many people Think about Christianity or Christians that.

But that's what God wants, right?

He wants us to show up in the world and, and to be so much more than just the ruler, order, if you will.

Yes, there are obviously the commandments and there's lots of things in the Bible that tells us how to live.

But I'm just saying beyond that, it's so much more.

You see, God didn't ask us just to be rule followers.

He said to be rule breakers.

What do I mean by that?

He.

Yes, he tells us to praise and thank him and to show up right, the way that.

That were directed to live in the Bible.

But he also is saying in the world full of bursting joy and peace.

In other words, let your joy bubble up.

Because no one is coming to Jesus because of the rules.

They're going to come to Jesus because they see the peace, the calm, the fruit of the Spirit.

They're going to see the joy within you, regardless of your circumstances.

In other words, it's by being connected to the Holy Spirit, it's by experiencing the fruit of the Spirit and living that way.

That's when people say, I want what you have.

So just following the Bible, following the rules doesn't get people there, right?

They want to know, how do I live different?

How do I have a peace that doesn't always make sense?

How do I have joy regardless of my circumstances?

So we're not just flipping the script.

We're not just looking.

We're not just wanting to be hopeful for good things to come because it changes our lives, but it will change the lives of the people around us.

It will bring people to Christ.

Because when we live that way, when we feel that, right, when we're an embodiment of that, people will want to know how, where does this come from?

Who is this person, Jesus Christ?

And but that is how we not only change the world, by the way we move and operate in it, and by the things we're doing in the world, by how we're stewarding the work we're doing and how we're stewarding our faith, how we're stewarding our finances.

You know, how we're encouraging people, how we're speaking into people's lives, but it's also by how we show up as a Christ follower.

And so this is so important.

Like I said, it's important to us.

It's important to our families, to our communities, but it's also important to the people that have not yet come to know Christ.

And so while this might at first seem like Okay.

I need to like, change what I think about and what I look for.

It's so much more than that.

And I have two resources for you today if you haven't already grabbed them that I think you're going to love and I would love to invite you to go grab them.

The first you can get on, you can get from my freebies page, go to KristinFitch.com and then click on my workbooks tab and scroll down near the bottom.

But it's called sorry.

Rewire your mind from negativity to joy.

And basically I give you a couple simple swaps on how to shift your thoughts and start experiencing more joy.

But it helps us shift when we start having like a we're ruminating on something or we're caught up in something.

It gives you the steps to change that thinking.

And the more you do it, the more you'll change those patterns.

So grab that.

It's called rewire your mind.

The other one is brand new.

I just came out with it.

And you can also grab it from my website.

But it's called Joy Camp Summer companion.

And it's basically just simple practices to help you find joy again.

But it gives you 10 things that you can do to just stay connected to God and present in your lives and open to wonder.

And then it has an area for you to kind of fill out some of the things you're going to do this summer.

For that, there's a gratitude and joy log, there is a weekly reflection.

So what brought you the most joy?

What made you feel the most alive?

How'd you see God move?

And then there is kind of like a summer wrap up look back.

And so it's like a couple questions that you can answer that will just let you reflect and think about.

As you shifted your thoughts and took some different actions, you got out of your comfort zone.

Where did your joy and peace bubble forth?

So that one's called joycamp Summer companion.

So go grab both of those.

They're completely free.

And by doing so, you'll join our email community.

And most weeks I send at least a weekly email just to encourage you in your life away from the podcast and just as you step into your day and into your week.

So I would love for you to go grab those and I'd love to hear from you if you either have an idea for the podcast, an episode, I'd love to hear that.

Or if something that I talked about or a guest I had on spoke to you.

I'd love to hear that.

Just reach out through my website.

I have a contact form.

You can reach me or go follow me on Instagram.

I'm hristenfitch and DM me.

Send me a message because I would love to hear from you.

Because as someone that shares this kind of content, it is such a gift for people to tell me when something spoke to them or it kind of touched their heart or whatever it might be.

Because those of us that are consider ourselves encouragers, we also need a little bit of encouragement.

And sometimes that can be hard to come by in a world that's busy and noisy and we're going from thing to thing to thing.

So until next time, I hope you have a beautiful week and I hope my hope for you is that you will be someone that has hopeless expectations of those good things to come in your life and into your future.

If you enjoyed today's episode, if you could leave a rating review on Apple Podcast or wherever you listen to podcasts, it helps the show get discovered by more people so that we can continue to uplift and encourage people in their faith journey as well as all of the other parts of their lives.