Why do we limit God and how do we limit God in our thoughts, our prayers, our lives?

I was limiting God in my life because of a defiled imagination. Remember the definition of the word defiled is – To damage the purity or appearance of something. Which in return always made myself feel worthless. All I ever did was hold on to guilt, the guilt of how many times I had messed up by making wrong choices. This can be one of the ways how we limit God in our thoughts by feeling and thinking in such ways as this. For example, I felt like I was asking too much of God, that I shouldn't be asking God for things ever, all because of the guilt I was holding on to.

Yet God says to us in Ephesians 3:20 – There is nothing too big that we could ever ask or think of Him. That scripture was my motivation, it helped change a lot within my ways, within the choices I made. When we venture through this process, as I went through this process, it made me realize that I need to think bigger. Now let me tell you, this journey was like a roller-coaster ride at first. When I would feel like I was thinking big, having big thoughts about God moving through my life – I would get around certain individuals, that discouraged my big thoughts. Let me explain the pros and cons of this and how this happens. When we feel like we are thinking big, certain individuals will get jealous of us. They get jealous of God blessing us, they manipulate our thinking by making out that they have even bigger thoughts than we would do. Their dreams and visions are better, their thoughts are huge compared to ours. In a way this could be good, because it could really challenge us to think even bigger. This slightly encouraged my way of thinking at first, which pushed myself to think bigger. It did not take long for those thoughts to start building up negativity within me as I started to feel that God blessed them more than myself?

This is why it was a roller-coaster ride for me at first. I had to cast thoughts and doubts like that out of my imagination, reminding myself that I just needed to think bigger by trusting and believing in God. Not trusting in the manipulation of others, who twist, then distort our big thinking. Trust in God on what He can do, on what He wants to do, and on what He will do in our lives. We only limit God in our lives by limiting ourselves. How do we overcome doubting then, and start believing in God? For myself it was a simple process of overcoming all the obstacles and fears in my life first.

John 16:33 NKJV
These things I have spoken to you, that in Me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation; but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world.

Jesus says that we will face hard times. For myself, that was people making out that they have bigger dreams than I do – Which seriously discouraged me at first but I needed to learn to remain faithful to Jesus Christ. I had to undergo a hard battle here. The stronger my faith was becoming, the further I was overcoming these problems and doubts, but others in and around my life tried to still bring this positive attitude down with manipulation. This was the next process I had to learn to overcome. Jesus Christ overcame the world first. This wasn't straight forward, I had some ups and then some downs during this process. Nothing is more powerful than the name of Jesus, and in Jesus Christ, we are world overcomers.

1 John 5:4-5 NKJV
For whatever is born of God overcomes the world. And this is the victory that has overcome the world-our faith. Who is he who overcomes the world, but he who believes that Jesus is the Son of God?

We need to realize how powerful our imagination truly can be when we act in faith – we are not just simple people, who wander this world with no ambition, we are children of God.

I am a child of God – So I am a world overcomer.

We are children of God – So we are world overcomers.

This is how we stop limiting God, this is how I stopped limiting God in my life, and stopped limiting my imagination of Him. As God began to heal my corrupt imagination with how I saw myself – always believing that I was not worthy, I was defeated before I even started when thinking this way. Thinking bigger was saying to myself, Why can't I have big dreams? Why can't I have big thoughts? Why can't I have big desires like other individuals do? There always comes a time when we really have had enough, this was that moment for myself. It was time for me to stop limiting God, stop limiting my thinking and allow God to do those things that He wants to do. So how do we really limit God? Let's recap all that’s been said, bringing it into perspective. We only limit ourselves by limiting our imagination – When we limit our imagination, we in return limit God's work in our lives at the same time.

Set one – We limit ourselves.
Set two – We limit God.
Set three – We limit God's work.

Then this leaves the door open so to say, for manipulative individuals to come and control how we think. As the truth was revealed to myself through God’s way of thinking, my mind was opened to new desires, the desires of God's heart. Desires of amazing things that God has in store for us all. Those new things are always going to be God's ways – where He wanted me to go, what He wanted me to do, as I had stated previously. Scripture kept confirming what I felt God was showing to me.

Ephesians 2:10 NKJV
For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.

God prepared the way for us beforehand, now all we need to do is walk – we are the ones who need to follow now. In a different way of phrasing this is, God has paved a smooth path for us to walk on. So why do we keep walking on the bumpy road, a path that is filled with holes, rocks and thorns in the way, to slow us down? Another different way to phrase this is, if we keep our thoughts locked up away in a small box, how can we allow God in – God is mighty and awesome; His presence is beyond anything we could imagine. God cannot fit in our small-minded boxes. How can I get God to fit in my tiny box?

It's impossible.

I had to allow God to take control, which allowed myself to see how truly great His ways are. This was all about myself letting go and all about having faith in Jesus Christ, allowing Him to fill myself with His Holy Spirit. This helped me to step out of my small box, then step into trusting God, who was outside the small box. We can’t try to make our boxes bigger for God to fit in, we need to step into God's box for us. In return I started to learn, realizing what it meant to have a faith-filled imagination.