Monday Morning Devotion-November 5, 2018

Monitoring Your Mind

Let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think.    Romans 12:2

            What's going on in your mind these days?  John Ortberg (The Me I Want to Be) writes: "Our thought patterns become as habitual as brushing our teeth.  After a while we don't even think about them."

            Stop and think about what you are thinking about.  I mean just now before you started reading this.  Were your thoughts happy, calming and peaceful?  Were they worrisome, concerned and upsetting?  How about just plain old angry, mad and upset?  

            Ortberg says" "We get so used to bitter thoughts or anxious thoughts or selfish thoughts that we don't even notice what we are thinking about." 

            Your thinking can go in opposite directions if you have been complimented then along comes a criticism.

            Remembering back to those days when I used to broadcast Florida State University baseball games on radio.  My partner, the late Lee Bowen, and I received lots of praise about our broadcasts of the baseball games.  In fact, now over a dozen years later I'll still get a compliment, here and there, especially when I go to a game.  People will immediately think back to those times and tell me how much they enjoyed our broadcasts.  Something we said or our broadcasting style or features like "The Home Run Inning" that we had on the broadcasts.  Lee and I could just smile and puff out our chests and utter a heartfelt thank you.  It always makes you feel good to know what you are doing is appreciated and enjoyed.

            But on occasion we would receive a criticism about something on the broadcast.  Maybe it was something we said inadvertently or a complaint about the station's power since the games were on AM radio for many years and the power had to be cut down at sunset which practically eliminated those in surrounding towns and out in the country from hearing the end of the game.

            Whatever the criticism was, and let me hasten to add that the complimentary comments far outnumbered the negative ones, I can recall our change of mindset.

            Most of the time we would go on the defensive…not speaking into the microphones…but in our minds and our conversation in the booth.  "What does he know about it.  Bet he never even played a game of baseball.  Certainly, hasn't spent the amount of time researching the game that we have."  That's manufactured conversation, not real, but the type of things we were thinking while we were upset.

            You see how quickly the thinking could change from positive and feeling appreciated to negative and feeling like this one person was speaking for the majority.

            If we don't monitor our minds and practice thought control then those thoughts can change everything…our mind set, our mood, our performance, and temporarily even  darken our personality.

            Ortberg points out that one of the great barriers to a "flourishing mind is mindlessness."   I'm sure this never happens to you but Ortberg said he would be sitting at the breakfast table with his family but his mind wasn't there.  He was thinking about the problems he was facing or all the tasks that were ahead of him and myriad other thoughts.  In other words, he is absentminded…his mind has gone AWOL.  The family conversation is flowing around him and he may interject a terse thought from time to time but his mind is elsewhere.

            He explains that our feelings never descend on us at random.  As a general rule our emotions flow out of our thoughts.  "Discouraged people tend to think discouraging thoughts.  Worried people tend to think anxious thoughts."  Those thoughts are so automatic we sometimes get us to what he calls "stinking thinking."

            This arises from a personal experience that Ortberg and his family had.  One Saturday night their house was assaulted by an odor so indescribably noxious they had to vacate the house.

They thought it was a gas leak and called the gas company and the fire department.  As it turned out it was a skunk that had gotten close to their house.

            The odor eventually dissipated but never completely went away and they kinda got use to the lingering odor.  Then it came back full force.  They determined that you could not get rid of a skunk-odor unless you got rid of the skunk.

            It's hard to find somebody willing to find and get rid of a skunk.  But they found a "skunk whisperer" who didn't come cheap.  He discovered there were two live skunks and one dead one in a space underneath the house and he removed them.

            They discovered that their sense of smell has a unique power to evoke emotion and those inner lives are like aromas.

            Our spiritual life begins with paying attention to our thoughts.  So it pays to think about what we are thinking about and as we monitor our minds we can alter our thinking as needed.

            When you do this, you will encounter many thoughts that were directing your actions and feelings that you weren't really aware of.  You will also "begin to recognize what kind of thoughts the Spirit flows in. The Apostle Paul gives us a great framework for understanding which are the thoughts and attitudes that come from the Spirit.  He writes, "'The mind controlled by the sinful nature is death, but the mind controlled by the Spirit is life and peace."

            So Ortberg suggests: "Take any thought, especially thoughts that feel weighty or that you find yourself turning over and over in your mind and ask: 'What direction are these thoughts leading me in?  Are they leading me toward life---toward God's best version of me? Or in the other direction.' "

            In that way you can train your mind to think great thoughts and that will lead you to do

great things.

Prayer:  Lord, be with us as we examine our thinking and guide us as we redirect those thoughts in a Spirit-lead way.        Amen!