A Sound Mind

Hello on Wednesday!

A sound mind. Doesn't that have a nice, peaceful ring to it? It has been my prayer this week, because I have noticed how many thoughts I have that are not based on reality, but on my percieved reality, which gets proven false again and again. Phooey! Does this ever happen to you? My emotions and insecurities often tilt my thoughts toward unsoundness, and that's why this prayer had me doing a bit of research....

First, I noticed that insecurities, those wretched emotions that try to pull us away from rational sanity, can only be shaken off by truth, trust, and a willingness to be vulnerable (which is kinda hard to be, especially when lack of trust is presenting itself).

Second, confidence. It comes from God, His sure and solid and real truth, and beliving in both of those.

Which brings me to the third item -- renewing our mind. Now, how do we do this? By the word of God, of course! When we become children of God through belief in Jesus' work on the cross we want to please Him and be changed from what we once were. Our thoughts want to line up in trust with who God says we now are in Him and with who God says He is. We know His word is truth, we know God is faithful, cannot lie, and does not change. Also, we know we belong to Him, daughters of the Most High and fellow heirs with Jesus (wow!!!). Knowing this, all by itself, apart from all the zillions of verses God had written out for us, our thoughts can now be sound.

Sometimes, though, we have to remind our thoughts of this and lasso in any wayward ones that are a bit on the wild side of obedience. We bring every thought captive to the obedience of Christ.

There is not a problem that cannot be answered with God's word, one way or another. For instance, the other day my thoughts were running amok with some wrong speculations. I actually was getting really worked up over what I was thinking was going on - you know, all those supposings..... Instead of coralling those thoughts and meditating on "whatsoever is true" I just allowed them to rule and reign without a fight. I believed the supposed reality of my thoughts. Well, later that day, they proved to be 100% wrong!!! I had wasted two whole hours in a mental uproar for nothing! I should have had the V8 of God's promises!!!

Anyhoo, "we are destroying speculations and every lofty thing raised up against the knowledge of God, we are taking every (every!) thought captive to the obedience of Christ" (2 Corinthians 10:5).

The book at the top is one I read years ago and just pulled off my bookshelf to peruse again....