Thoughts – what do you do with yours? 

[I apologize for the gap in Morning Briefings.  Behind the wheel of my car, I was rear-ended while at a stoplight on Sept. 21, and unfortunately, the ramifications of it have continued to get worse in my back and neck.  It is my highest aim to send instruction, encouragement and inspiration from the Word of God daily; please know when there is an interruption, something has impeded that aim.  You are always in my heart, mind and prayers, dear ones.]

It is common for preachers to talk about giving our hearts to God; it is less common for them to talk about giving our thoughts to God.  But are we not the sum total of our thoughts? 

We can experience the sweetness of time alone with God, or some meaningful shared worship experience, and leave that space, and find ourselves feeling cut adrift, alone in a world filled with arrows shooting at our minds, demanding our attention in so many ways. The arrows come from an email request from a colleague, a phone call from the school regarding our student, a just-opened bill stamped overdue, the nagging thought that we have not worked out in three days, or an unreturned voicemail we see on our phones.  Instantly, our thoughts go with the arrows first here, then there, and our minds exhaust us.  What happened to the sweet space we gave to God 30 minutes ago?  Where did that ‘feeling’ of peace go?

Do you ever stop and think about what you think about

As you walk along the way, what is running through your mind?

As you drive down the road, how many different trails will your thoughts take?

Aye…

   ~ YOUR THOUGHTS ~

              are they more likely to be …

good                  or something far less than good?

positive            or pessimistic?

valuable          or destructive?

empowering   or deflating?

holy                  or depraved?

hopeful             or despairing?

joyful                or worried?

noble                 or cowardly?

confident         or fearful?

contented        or never satisfied?

pure                  or corrupt?

purposeful     or a wasteland?

lovely               or ugly?

humble            or prideful?

admirable       or ignoble?

life-giving       or critical? 

Indeed if all of your thoughts from the last week were projected on a white wall, what would they resemble … a minefield?                                                                                                                                                 a cesspool?

        a swamp?

                  or   a garden, where good things have the ability to      flourish?                                                                                            You see, how we think and what we think about is important to God.

How we think and what we think about is critical to our own well being,

and how we think impacts our ability to discern the voice of God,

 and to sift God’s voice from all the other voices in our head. 

You see, right thinking matters . . . especially as Jesus followers, longing to be in communion with him--as does discerning the origination of our thoughts.  It is the heart of God that our thoughts would thrive with that which is good and life giving; Paul summed it up beautifully,

“whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.”¹ 

It is good to take stock and conduct an interview with one’s self occasionally.  So, about what would you say you spend most of your time thinking?_____________________

________________________________________

What thoughts do you have that are pleasing to God?________________________________________________________________________

Which thoughts are not? __________________________________________     __________________________________________

Paul said, "Do not be conformed to this world but be transformed by the renewing of your minds, so that . . .”  Look up Romans 12.2. and fill in the rest:  “______________ _________________________________________."

We must give not just our hearts to God, but our minds as well, so that through the power of the Holy Spirit in us,

                      we can take control of our thinking,

rather than our thoughts running amok controlling us.

^{1 – Philippians 4.8}

^{2 – question: why do you think Paul follows Philippians 4, verses six and seven with the content about thinking in verse eight??  www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Philippians+4.6-8&version=NLT&interface=print}