Today, I’m giving you a new word. I don’t mean that all spiritual like a word from God, although I sincerely pray you’ll get that too, I’m literally giving you a new word for your vocabulary. Now, before I do, I give you this disclosure, I’m rather quirky and a bit edgy. I often say things I probably shouldn’t say. Like yesterday I’m pretty sure my opening line was “hot dogs and holy balls”. I may have lost a few listeners. I’m not your typical uptight church lady quoting scriptures (and hey if you ever check my quotes, you find I get them wrong … like a lot. I transpose numbers and jack up references on the regular, but you know what, I keep showing up even when I messed up the day before. I offer myself some grace when I get this wrong, otherwise I get all in my head and convince myself I’m not good enough to do this. It’s God’s funny way of keeping me humble.)
Okay, back to that new word I have for you. Write this down. BULLFOOLERY. Bullfoolery is the act of fooling around with BS. You know when you’re stirring up crap, dwelling on crap or generally feeling and acting crappy, this is bullfoolery. You are fooling around with complete BS in your life.
Let’s use it in a sentence and apply it: Do you ever struggle with negative thinking? Here’s what you have to do: Cut yourself off in he middle of negative thoughts like GIRL, WE DON’T HAVE TIME FOR THIS BULLFOOLERY.
There are many different forms of this word and you can choose the one that best suits you. All essentially have the same meaning.
Bullfreakery
Bullcrappery
Bullfookery
Bullhockery
Bulleffery
Nobody has time to be messing around with this crap. And again, I’m referring to that negative line of BS you believe about yourself on the daily. We wouldn’t talk to our dogs the way we talk to ourselves!
Why can I look at someone else with a lens of grace and acceptance, but I look at myself with a critical and harsh eye of judgment? I can tear myself down in 2.0 seconds and lick my self-inflicted wounds the rest of the day.
You know what I really hate? I hate to hear someone call themselves “fatty” or “stupid”. That’s self-deprecation. Why are you tearing yourself down? Don’t you know you’re the prized creation of the almighty? Don’t you know he sees what he made in you and he likes it? Why would you ever try to fit yourself into some cookie cutter shape when God was showing his greatest creativity when he made you unique? How about you love yourself enough to take great care of yourself in every way, especially the way you talk to yourself?
These thoughts running wild in our own mind are like wild banshees graffiting up the walls of our confidence and self-worth. There are truths God placed within you when he created you. Truths of value and worth and identity. And these truths have been spray painted over with the negative thoughts that tell you you’re not good enough and there’s something wrong with you.
BULLFOOLERY
This is complete bullfoolery. Why have we allowed our thoughts to do this to us? Why do we continue to allow this hijacking of our potential and demise of our purpose? Why are we fooling around with the BS lies from the enemy and covering the truths of our creator?
I’m going to let you in on a little secret … every morning I wake up at 3:30 and I start writing by 4. And every morning it goes something like this:
I have an idea pop in my head.
That idea has potential for being impactful.
I think of a scripture or a story to teach the idea.
I start typing the idea into an outline.
Oh, this is going to be good.
Three sentences in, I start freezing up.
This is going nowhere.
This doesn’t make sense.
Oh my gosh, what am I doing?
I’m not good enough to speak to all these people.
I’m a fake and when all my listeners figure out I’ve finally run out of good things to share, it’s over.
This is it, today’s the day.
I have nothing.
It’s almost time to go live.
That’s the red spray paint threatening to graffiti the walls of my confidence and self-worth every single morning. I never feel good enough to do this. The enemy is always whispering in my ear telling me I look like a fool.
And I get to choose whether I listen to him or not.
So do you.
I don’t know what he says to you, but it’s a personal attack on your potential. It’s a continual picking at the scabs of your past wounds that keeps you from healing. It’s a swirlay (I don’t think that’s word and I’m pretty sure I just made something else up). Yes, it’s a swirlay of nonsense swirling around in your head causing you to sit it out and back down from the very thing you’ve been called to. Well listen here you line of nonsense, you stream of lies from the defeated one, you negative thoughts of darkness, you can swirlay yourself right on out of my life, you have no place here!
Graffiti is not welcome on my walls of truth. I know who I am and I know whose I am.
This is what 2 Corinthians 10:5 means when it says “take every thought captive to make it obedient to Christ.” Not every thought gets to run wild in my head. Not every thought gets to step on my truth. Not every thought is here to build me up and help me become who I was created to be … no there are a whole lot of thoughts here to destroy me and keep me from ever becoming the powerhouse God created me to be.
Don’t you know you were created to be a force of God’s power? You were created to do remarkable things with your life. And more than any outside resistance, the thing that threatens you most are the things you can’t even see. The invisible and destructive thoughts that tell you you can’t. The thoughts that tell you you’ll never change. The thoughts that tell you there’s absolutely nothing special about you. The thoughts that tell you sit down and be quiet because you have nothing worth saying.
BS! That’s such a load of BS. Don’t fool around with that bull! Girl, you don’t have time for this bullfoolery. You have a life to live and you’re the only one who can do it. Check the ID on your thoughts. Who sent them? What’s their purpose? It’s time to do some throwing out of old thought patterns you’ve been carrying around as they graffiti the heck out of your confidence.
I screw up on the daily, that doesn’t mean I’m a screw up. It means I’m human and you know what, God chose to work through humans. He did his greatest work when he himself became human and walked this earth as Jesus. Now, he wants to work through me and you. Know the truth about YOU. Your weaknesses are Jesus’ opportunity to show his power in you. Your faults and cracks are spaces for him to fill.
When you catch those negative thoughts running around like banshees trying to spray paint their lies on your truth, you take them captive. You reign them in and stop their nasty little parade. And you remind yourself, GIRL WE DON’T HAVE TIME FOR THIS BULLFOOLERY! I’m here on purpose for a purpose! I’m stepping on into my destiny and leaving the BS behind!
