Smoking freedom in 20 days: Day 4

Mike had a huge fight with his dad. His dad was his closest and best relationship. First he had done his dad wrong and then his dad ripped into him pretty good. 10 days free from smoking were already gone. Before he even stopped his anger for a minute he was already smoking. Then it hit him. He had come so far. He was praying and starting to get some direction. He had started positive addictions and activities and it had been working. In total frustration he stopped for a minute. He then looked up and asked “God, why did you let me down?”

The minute he said that he realized that he may have had something to do with the mess. So he bowed his head and said “I am sorry Father, I messed up again”. Upon doing so he felt something come over him. He wanted to keep smoking but then it hit him. His relationship with Jesus Christ had been bringing him something real. In fact right now at a dark moment, he felt like he might be able to fight back. He said, Father, help me, give me a chance to turn this around. 

Abruptly he threw his cigarette away. He began to pray and within minutes he began to remember plans for his purpose he would like to do in the near future (if his health is good). He quickly realized that his anger sunk him again. He got his pen and wrote out his strategy for going to war with anger. 

Ways to quit smoking: Life is filled with constant problems and these issues lead to negative emotions which are often triggers to smoking. It is wise to retrain your mind to react moderately to life’s constant problems. Anger, self pity, resentment, frustration, boredom or anything else that triggers your habit needs to be changed. Make a note of what emotions cause you problems. Then pray, plan and prepare yourself to react differently. Your mind will learn new habits. If you get angry every day you have that habit. Now if you make efforts every day to keep your anger under control you are beginning to form a new habit which will assist you in learning self control.

What happens is that your emotions get out of control and what do you do when you get upset. You likely smoke. So you need to spend a lot of time praying about the emotions that leads to your habit.
Write down what emotion tends to lead you back to smoking?

Let’s look in on people who quit to see how they did it. Bill prayed five times per day that God would help him to control his negative emotions. Remember we pray all the time for things that are not in God’s will. This prayer is exactly what God wants you to change and He will answer it over time.

Now you may say I have asked God a 1000 times to keep me from smoking and I went back 998 times. Did I get no answer to prayer?
God will answer the prayer of a sincere person immediately and permanently. I will also tell you that God never answers my prayers immediately. And I know why. On some level I still want my addiction. So if you want to pray directly about your addiction pray “Father help me to not want this addiction”. Or we may still be accepting of other permanent sin in our life. Get the sin out and God will start to consider your prayers.

Many of you have accepted Christ as your Savior. For a while you felt His tremendous love in your life and then it has faded a bit. The way to get it back (or to start now) is to repent of your sins and to dedicate your life to Him. Pray “Father forgive me of my sins. I accept you as my Savior.” If you lack the faith to commit at this time read “The Case for Christ” by Lee Strobel.

I believe that Jesus is real and this great book documents a man who made it his goal to prove Jesus was a fake. After years of research He become a Christian and wrote this book because of the overwhelming evidence that Jesus was real and is God.

Lisa (who sometimes slips back) formed a habit to say to herself 6 times a day that “smoking causes me destruction. It makes me wake up 3-4 times every night coughing. I overestimate the pleasure it brings me in the day and underestimate the pain it causes me at night and will cause later.”

Thought to memorize: When I resist “it” persists. If I “refocus” on new things I will keep control. Example: If Wayne is fighting temptation with all his strength. Now he has to fight all evening. Grace is tempted and she spends 3 minutes planning out her night and then immediately gets busy with the plan. Grace will be too busy to be tempted a lot and she will likely keep control all the way.

Read First Corinthians 1 and Matthew 1 from the Bible.

Today Mike decided to add idea’s to his quitting smoking journal.

One of the reasons some people struggle to quit is because they have no idea what the purpose for their life is. There is an excellent book by Rick Warren called “The Purpose Driven Life”. I highly recommend that you read this book.

1 Corinthians 10:13 “There hath no temptation taken you but such as is common to man: but God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able; but will with the temptation also make a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear it.”

God has unfailing love for us. Every day I will add another verse that talks about His unfailing love.

Psalm 6:4
Turn, O LORD, and deliver me; save me because of your unfailing love.

What The Bible Says About Addiction is my new 340 page e-book which is filled with new information about quitting addiction. This book is Based 95% on the Bible (New Testament) with a few of my quitting addiction theories added. Reading it allows the Holy Spirit to renew your mind. Click here to access it. Please leave a good review if you like it.

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Thank you for reading day 4 of this program, ways to quit smoking.