We have a choice as to what we think??
Heard recently from an endlessly exploring seven year-old when given the charge of looking after three younger children on the edge of a campsite creek: “It’s all right – I won’t even let anything come into my mind.”
Wow! To be so aware of the dichotomy that we all have in making a choice as to what we think. And to be so aware that if she did not guard her thoughts she might be inclined to lead her young charges into danger (she had shortly before been seen standing on a timber jutting out below the loose road surface of an old disused, rotting bridge, waving and shouting ‘look at me’).
She had also expressed the dichotomy some years before when confronted with something she had done wrong: “But it’s so hard to be good…”
We all have that choice as to what we let come into our minds. We also have a choice as to what we feed our minds – with what we read and see and also choose to hear. And we know we reap from that which we sow. We are to guard our hearts and thoughts (warning: sermon almost irresistible).
For some the choice is harder – particularly for those with obsessive ruminating thoughts as part of a depressive disorder and also for those who have come from a background of allowing ‘wrong’ choices – but we still have a choice. For the depressive with unwanted and negative thoughts it is helpful to suggest that they don’t try to fight it so much but to actively replace it – to simply put in a new tape with a new thought. For the Christian this is probably best done by singing a praise song, this having the psychological effect of replacing the ‘bad’ thought process with another that can be sung along to the music in our head and also the incredible spiritual effect of concentrating on praising God thus allowing the Holy Spirit to help us in our infirmity. (I do hope you have music in your head…)
May we become increasingly conscious of the treachery of our minds as we grow in our journey to Christlikeness – and we know that when we are with Him, we shall be like Him and the dichotomy will be cured.
Lachlan Dunjey May 2003 (rev 2012).
Tags: bad thoughts, depression, singing
Good ideas. Thanks for the reminder to mind our minds. And how to do it! Love practical Christianity.