Commanding Your Morning: Unleash the Power of God in Your Life

by Cindy Trimm

Only as high as I reach can I grow, only as far as I seek can I go, only as deep as I look can I see, only as much as I dream can I be.1 —Karen Ravn

The workings of the human heart are the profoundest mystery of the universe. One moment they make us despair of our kind, and the next we see in them the reflection of the divine image.1 —Charles W. Chesnutt

Whatever you harbor in the innermost corridors of your thought life will, sooner or later, reveal itself in the outer arena through your words or actions.

Every circumstance in life is a result of a choice—and every choice is the result of a thought. All those things that fill your mind hold the keys to your reality. Your thoughts provide the fuel for your words, and your words provide the fuel for your world.

Remember, the world within not only colors the world without, but it is also its blueprint. Be intentional in what you hear, how you think, and what you speak—for you are setting the stage for the reality you experience.

Our life is what our thoughts make it.1 —Marcus Aurelius

[A man] will find that as he alters his thoughts toward things, and other people, things and other people will alter towards him.2 —James Allen

You must become as skilled in your thoughts and speech as a swordsman is with his sword. Taking control of your thoughts will cause you to gain control over your life. That is what putting on the armor of God is all about.

The first thing you must do in taking possession of all God has prepared for you is to take possession of your thoughts. You may not think this requires a great deal of effort, let alone training or practice, but there is only one thing harder to master than your thoughts, and that is your tongue! (See James 3:8.) Winning the battle in your thought life requires meditating daily on the truths found in Scripture, studying diligently to show yourself approved, and becoming an earnest and lifelong student of the art of spiritual warfare.

We must understand who we were created to be as children of God, and we must understand the authority we have in Christ.

Every battle is won or lost in the arena of your mind.

You are the sum total of your thoughts. I have learned that as your deepest driving desire is, so is your will; as your will is, so are your deeds; as your deeds are, so is your destiny.

If you do not take control of your inner thoughts, you will become a slave to your outer circumstances. You won’t be driving your life; the storms and changing weather will.

Eighteenth-century poet and theologian Johann Gottfried Von Herder has been quoted as saying, “Without inspiration the best powers of the mind remain dormant; there is a fuel within us which needs to be ignited with sparks.”

Every circumstance in your life can be changed for the best. The moment you convert your imagination into intentions and your intentions into actions, a change must occur. A profound example of someone who changed his humble circumstances by means of the power of thinking is the composer extraordinaire and music impresario Quincy Jones. In his words, he was inspired by every band that came through town. He had no training at all, but he was fueled by inspiration to learn from every opportunity available. He was known to call on Ray Charles in the early hours of the morning whenever he came to town. He was practically adopted by Count Basie at the age of thirteen. As soon as Quincy picked up the trumpet, he heard arrangements of ensembles in his head, and his reputation as an arranger grew.4 He is the all-time most-nominated Grammy artist with a total of seventy-nine Grammy nominations.5 Quincy Jones was inspired.

George Washington Carver was inspired to grow and produce peanuts. Starting out as a farmhand, Carver later attended Tuskegee University and revolutionized the southern agricultural economy by thinking up more than two hundred products that could be derived from the peanut and more than one hundred different products that could be derived from the sweet potato. These products included soap, ink, plastics, axle grease, flour, molasses, vinegar, and rubber, just to name a few.6

Albert Einstein said, “I am enough of an artist to draw freely upon my imagination. Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the world.”7 If

Einstein was considered a slow learner, possibly due to dyslexia. Yet he imagined, postulated, and propelled the theory of relativity to the forefront of modern science, winning the 1921 Nobel Prize in Physics.8 What we know of quantum physics can largely be attributed to the contributions of Albert Einstein.

Inspiration is a God thing. Inspiration is God Himself speaking into the human spirit. Inspirational thoughts are God finding expression for His will through the minds of human beings.

Our lives are built by a series of thoughts, much as bricks are used to build a house. The bricks are what bring it forth from a piece of paper and make it three-dimensional. As a man thinks in his heart—in the present active continuum, as he continues to think—he is building his life one brick at a time. Your every present thought is a significant building block in determining the quality of your future. Many of us build lives like shanties, while others build mansions. If your thoughts are inferior, your life will be inferior; but if your thoughts are lofty and honorable, you are laying the foundation to live accordingly.

There is a direct correlation between the quality of your thoughts and the quality of your life. What you think determines who you are; it determines what you are, where you go, what you acquire, where you live, whom you love, where you work, what you accomplish, what you read—I could go on and on. James Allen wrote in his timeless classic As a Man Thinketh, “All that a man achieves and all that he fails to achieve is the direct result of his own thoughts.”10 If your life is going to change, you must think for a change. You are always only one thought away from changing your life.

you will never have more or go further or accomplish greater things than your thoughts will allow you. Therefore, you must create an opulent thinking environment in order to create an opulent life. Your life is a reflection of your most dominant thoughts and meditations. When you make it a practice to meditate on success, you will begin to live a successful life.

You are the architect and building contractor of your future. Use your thoughts as an architect uses a blueprint. Think about every detail. An architect not only thinks about the rooms in a house but also the types of windows, the size of closets, the location of outlets, and so on. Nothing is too insignificant. Think big and think detailed!

Ask Michael Dell. Borrowing one thousand dollars from family members at nineteen, he launched his multibillion-dollar company that dominates computer manufacturing today. On the premise that he could beat out large manufacturers by building custom computers and selling directly to consumers, he began selling systems and accessories out of his dorm room.11 This radical idea shook the computer world to its foundations. How did he do it? He thought big, he thought detailed, and he thought outside of the box.

It could be for this very reason that Jabez, in 1 Chronicles 4:9–10, did not ask God for more property or greater wealth but to enlarge his intellectual territory—or his mental capacity regarding his own worth. He asked God to give him a greater capacity for conceiving what he might accomplish on God’s behalf because he knew his own limited thinking was holding him captive. He prayed that God would give him a greater ability to think big. You need to cultivate possibility thinking because your thoughts determine your destiny. You have to be able to think about your future regarding what you really want to accomplish and on behalf of whom.

Determine now what steps you need to take on a daily basis to make the most of your life in the future. I like what Henry David Thoreau says: “Go confidently in the direction of your dreams. Live the life you have imagined.”

Nothing limits achievement like small thinking—nothing expands possibilities like thinking outside of the box. Unleash the power of your mind. Learn to cultivate possibility thinking. Think original thoughts. Think about something that has never been done, or put a new spin on something that has always been around. In 1886, John Pemberton turned common medicinal syrup into a cultural phenomenon by combining it with carbon...

Bill Gates, the computer mogul, was determined to find a way to apply his skills in the computer industry. At Harvard, Gates would spend many long nights in front of the school’s computer discussing ideas and the possibility of a future computer business with fellow student Paul Allen. When browsing through a magazine one day, Allen and Gates saw that the computer market was about to explode and that someone would have to make software for all those new machines. They acted on this hunch and worked on a program they thought had promise. Within the year, Bill Gates took a leave of absence from Harvard, a...

Helen Keller said, “The greatest tragedy in life is people who have sight but no vision.”

Vision is the ability to think progressively. A vision is a mental image of future possibilities. A friend of mine once told me that your feet will never take you where your mind has never been. Become the Christopher Columbus of your future. Columbus dared to lose sight of the known in order to experience the unknown. To conquer new territories you must have courage to lose sight of the shore. Dream big, then dare to wake up and accomplish it. Motivational speaker Robert J. Kriegel has said, “The shame in life is not to fail to reach your dream, but to fail to have a dream to reach.”

God will not only grant you your prayerful requests, but He will also grant you your daily declarations. Just as Jabez altered his destiny by asking God to give him bigger thoughts, you can change yours, too. I challenge you to change your role from being a cheerleader to becoming a drum major. March to the beat of your own drum, to the rhythm of your individuality, and to the symphonic pulsating sounds of your unique destiny and purpose.

Whatever your predominant focus is, that is what you permit to exist in your life. Jabez chose to focus on his future desires rather than his present circumstances. Many times people focus on the negative, and they live in a cycle of negativity. You have to choose to focus on the positive. You have to train your mind to think on whatever is honest, virtuous, and praiseworthy. (See Philippians 4:8.) Whatever is going wrong in your life is a result of your focus. If you don’t like it, change your focus!

If you plan to change your future, do not focus on things or people or circumstances that are smaller than what you are hoping for. Your focus will either feed your faith or confirm your fears. Learn to think like Abraham. Think intentionally, generationally, and even globally. You can never think too big, too grand, or too great! I challenge you with the words of Daniel H. Burnham: Make no little plans; they have no magic to stir men’s blood and probably themselves will not be realized. Make big plans; aim high in hope and work, remembering that a noble, logical diagram once recorded will not die, but long after we are gone be a living thing, asserting itself with ever-growing insistence.16

You must say to yourself, until this one fact becomes your conviction, “God wants me to live in abundance!”

When a ship sets sail to cross the sea, the pilot plots out the course. Then he determines the times he will need to adjust the direction of the ship to follow the course he has set. He checks his calculations from time to time to ensure he is always headed in the right direction, and then he keeps the steering as steady as possible, heading toward his predetermined destination. Certainly along the way he may have to adjust the helm to go around storms, navigate currents, or avoid obstacles in the water, but he always steers with his focus more on where he is going than what he is going through. If he constantly changes the steering from one minute to the next, fixating on his present circumstances, the ship is more likely to go in circles than it is to arrive at the desired port of call. For the pilot, the course is created first in his thoughts, communicated through the rudder, and then realized as the rest of the ship lines up with his intent. For us, our lives only arrive at our desired goals if we line up our thoughts, words, habits, and actions in a similar way. With this framework in mind, you can choose to live consciously and intentionally. Rather than letting the elements of your day dictate your destiny, you can take control of these elements and direct their course to a greater end.

What happens to a ship if you head it in one direction at one moment, and then turn it in the opposite direction in the next—and keep doing that over and over? Pretty simple—it goes nowhere. This is what happens when people start speaking about the good things they are expecting to happen one minute and then spend the next half hour talking about all the negative things happening to them that are keeping them from getting there. They are turning their lives in circles. They line up their spoken words with where they want to go for a little while; then when they meet a storm along the way, all they do is talk about the bad weather and lose track of where they were headed in the first place. They forget that they have the power to turn their lives around in the storm or press on through it to the sunshine on the other side. They forget that the “Son” has never stopped shining on their lives, no matter how dark the clouds in the sky are.

Even in the midst of what looks like catastrophe, keep speaking the blessing; keep the ship of your life on a steady course, and before you know it, the storm clouds will clear and you will have broken through your difficulty and left it far behind you.

Remember, according to Proverbs 18:21, “Death and life are in the power of the tongue, and those who love it will eat its fruit.” Choose to use your tongue to bring life and not death, to bless and not to curse—even when it comes to your “enemies.” Learn the art of blessing, for in blessing a thing or a person, that thing or person must bless you: “Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse” (Rom. 12:14). When you bless, blessings will be drawn to you, or as Deuteronomy 28:2 says, “Blessings shall come upon you and overtake you.” Conversely, in cursing a thing or a person, you draw curses upon yourself.

Place your hand directly in front of your mouth and declare aloud, “I am blessed, all of my needs are met, and I have more than enough for myself, my household, and extra left over to give to others.”

I am the sum total of what I have been confessing through the years.1 —Joel Osteen

Words have power, presence, and prophetic implications.

Come into agreement with what God has already said in His Word about you and your situation. You have to get God’s Word on it. Then fill your atmosphere with His promises on the matter.

Did you know that some of the greatest Christians of all times were lawyers? Now, we tend to make fun of lawyers and politicians in our culture today, but throughout history, lawyers have revealed some of the greatest things about God we have ever known. Moses was “the lawgiver,” and the apostle Paul was a Pharisee. (The Pharisees were a group who studied the Word of God as the law book on which to govern society.) Martin Luther of the Reformation began his career by entering law school, as did the great revivalist Charles Finney. What made them so powerful? They read their Bibles as lawyers would when studying to prepare a case, and they put more faith in God keeping His Word than they did in any earthly laws or political promises. Then they took those words and charged the atmosphere around them with biblical truth. They changed their worlds through what they spoke.

A man sooner or later discovers that he is the master-gardener of his soul, the director of his life.1 —James Allen

When Daniel prayed, God sent the answer immediately, but there were forces that prohibited it from being manifested right away. We read in the next verse the angel’s explanation for the delay: “The prince of the kingdom of Persia withstood me twenty-one days” (v. 13). As Daniel had persisted in prayer, the angel had persisted in his warring. Even though Daniel did not see any sign of the answer manifesting during all that time, it was in motion. Eventually it did come into being because Daniel never stopped praying and decreeing. The answer broke through because Daniel stood firm in his faith and his confession. Remember, there are always forces at work prohibiting your answer from manifesting. If you don’t sabotage your prayers with negative thoughts and words, then you will eventually see with your eyes the substance of what you have hoped for just as Daniel did.

So many times we declare a thing and then lose patience because it doesn’t manifest like popcorn in a microwave! We need to realize that, when it doesn’t come to pass immediately, we can undo what we have set in motion if we choose to speak words of discouragement instead of words filled with faith. Just because we don’t see a thing come to pass in a certain period of time does not mean that it isn’t ever going to be or that it isn’t God’s will. Remember how Joshua spoke a word and it took six hundred years before that particular word was manifested? Sometimes it takes a duration of time. We need to believe and speak as if it is coming today but stay strong and persist in our faith even if it takes decades.

When God made the declaration, “Let there be light,” He was really saying, “I allow light to be.” He was giving the light, straining at its harnesses to exist in the spirit, permission to manifest itself in the physical world. We must understand there are prohibiting, spiritual forces at work able to keep these things from occurring. There are fallen angels that cause deviations to what God originally purposed working in opposition to what God wants for your life—they operate much like the heavenly angels assigned to bring about the manifestation to your prayers, only in the exact opposite way. According to Scripture, demonic forces were once angels who had been given the same original assignment of responding to voice-activated commands, but when they fell from heaven, their mission became perverted. So instead of bringing the answers, they prohibit answers from manifesting. Your faith attracts the attention of heaven’s angels to work on your behalf, while your fear draws the demons of hell to work against you. Your words become the magnet that draws either heaven or hell into your situation.

In her book Live a Praying Life, Jennifer Kennedy Dean writes, “In response to our prayers, spiritual forces are set in motion that bring God’s will to earth. Prayer has its first effect in the spiritual realm. When the work is finished in the spiritual realm, the answer is revealed in the material realm.”2

John Wesley once said, “It seems God is limited by our prayer life—that He can do nothing for humanity unless someone ask Him.”

In Job 38, God is asking Job a series of questions. At one point God asks, “Where were you . . . when the morning stars sang together?” (vv. 4, 7). Further down He inquires, “Have you commanded the morning since your days began?” (v. 12). In a sense, God is asking Job, “Have you thought about speaking into your morning and bringing order into your day?”