Thinking about Thinking

I'm thinking about thinking, the way we think, the things that stand out to us over all - in a entire day, and the way our thoughts are our lives. The world is full of all sorts of people, so, I'm sure some people live a lot of their experiences outwardly. In fact, we tend to think of experiences as something we have outside of ourselves - in terms of physical events rather than inward musings. I'm rather the opposite. There is a vast, sometimes nice, sometimes foreboding, landscape, that twists and turns in my mind.

I've taken to pondering the lay of the land in my mind instead of just traversing it. Really it's nothing more than an imaginative metaphor for the reality that we each have a heart, a willful, deep, crazy heart, where more than one soul has lost itself permanently. As the Lord's I don't want to loose myself to myself, I want to loose myself to God and in God. 

Have you ever felt overwhelmed with yourself? Just too much of the same old me. I think we come to a place as Christians where we have tasted and seen that the Lord is good, and we can never go back. Praise God! We will slip up, move away from the path, act immaturely and unwisely, but, the Lord is good to remind us of our first love. To keep us thirsty for the only thing we know can fill us entirely. The moment when you remember, that act of remembering, is similar to those odd forgetful moments we've all had before, you know, standing with the refrigerator door open for at least ten minutes, looking for something, realizing suddenly you really don't know what you are doing here in the first place, then slowly shutting the door. Vacant expression. Fears of an early onset of Alzheimer's, short term memory loss, blue fish named Dory...

Back to the point - those moments come at more important times in our lives, when we suddenly realize He's been there all along, holding the door to Himself open, watching us pass it daily on our way to work on other, lesser, things. And choosing the perfect moment to reveal - to our blind eyes, all the power of His invisible Spirit at work in our lives. It's scary, convicting, and humbling. We are so loved.

Thinking is so vital, so important. And so dangerous. 

Thinking is dangerous when it leads you to think about yourself for the purpose of knowing yourself, and gratifying your wants and needs and desires, rather than for the purpose of knowing Christ. I think we create needs in ourselves that wouldn't even be there if we weren't thinking about them. Hehehe...

Thinking is dangerous when it brings more uneasiness to the heart than peace. I don't mean the uneasiness of conviction, a marvelous use of godly thinking, I mean worries and cares and general floating around letting life just "happen" to us randomly. Thinking must have a point, it is not an end in itself, and it does not give us answers. Our thoughts are not God's thoughts, we can't confuse the two! So don't let thinking just happen to you! Lead you thoughts to God, shape them around Him, around His promises, around claims you can make about truth and the victory we have in Christ. Stake your life on the Rock!

Thinking is dangerous when we love to think more than we love to trust our Savior. Do you love your own thoughts more than God's promises? I find myself defaulting to thinking about my own thoughts on solutions to my own problems. "If I do this ....", or "what if I did -"? Take it to the Word. Take it to God in prayer. Trust Him, not your own solutions. You'll only live defeated, stressed, unfulfilled, and stagnant without a Scripturally solid battle plan to direct your actions in life.

Thinking is dangerous when we create our own version of God, and trust in it, instead of seeking the true nature of the One we are called to know. It's easy to be waylaid with our own deceits about God. 

Thinking can be dangerous when it is used for self, but it is beautiful fellowship with God when we make Him the most honored, precious, partaker of our thoughts. Constantly rooting out sin under His firm touch, looking upwards to the mountains where He dwells, making Him of foremost importance while we think. Which will lead to making Him of utmost importance while we live, because life flows from the thought. 

"If then you were raised with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ is, sitting at the right hand of God. Set your mind on things above, not on things on the earth. For you died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God." Colossians 3:1-3

Only One Thing to Prove

It has taken me months to write this first post. Probably because I took so much time perfecting the layout, the themes and motifs, the message, that I became afraid of messing it all up with an insignificant first post. I felt I had sometime to prove - or that I needed to meet a standard which would set the tone for the rest of this blog. So much for that idea!

Here I am, this is me, writing simply because I realized this is my blog (for heaven's sake!), and I need an outlet to vent and proclaim and process and analyse and get things out of my system as they come. If this seems to contradict the mission statement, well, its because it probably does. I get too hung up in my own perspective and forget about God's. But hopefully writing will bring things back into perspective, shedding new scriptural light on ideas, which is exactly what I hope to accomplish in life.

Going along with that thought - I've realized lately how easy it is to think I must prove myself to others. Prove myself to be worthy of their attention, of their time, of their interest, of doing and being someone they want to call friend. Its weird how wrapped up in seeking man's praise we can become. It takes me off the real, genuine, focus of life. Living to glorify, enjoy, and walk with, God.

Self worth is a crazy idea, really. Its so individualistic, so alone, so apart from everything that is happening "out there". Why would we take up this idea that we should somehow, inherently, have a worth entirely in and of ourselves? It isolates us from each other, from God. People who comfort themselves with the notion that they are worth something, for whatever abstract reason, only prolong the agony before realizing the truth - by ourselves we aren't worth anything. That's the point. And I've got nothing to prove it otherwise. All the things that entice the human race, or the human individual, into thinking otherwise are folly. Pointless. Academics, high IQ's, coolness, clothes, cars, driving skills, jobs, physical fitness, friends, activities, trendiness, movie taste, the music you listen to, the books you read, the places you've been, the ministries you volunteer at once a week...

Taken by themselves - in an effort to prove that somehow we are worthy of recognition, or in an effort to boost self-worth, even just to our own hearts - everything that makes you feel like a unique and important human being means nothing. It doesn't prove anything, or if it does, perhaps only that we are fools.

Living like this is living like the atheist who tries to justify mans humanity, his unique self worth, even though our ancestors were apes.

But - "If then you were raised with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ is, sitting at the right hand of God. Set your mind on things above, not on things on the earth. For you died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ who is our life appears, then you also will appear with Him in glory." Colossians 3:1-4


Here is our worth. My life is hidden in Christ. I don't have to prove my worth - only His. Self worth becomes a thing of the past, a freeing understanding that I am no longer bound to prove my non-existent worth to the world. To the people I want to love and care about me. I am not alone. Christ loved me enough to lay down His life that I might never, ever, be alone. That I will never know absolute rejection. That I will never have to live my life surrounded by shallow things. Treasures abound on every side.

I'm not saying there is no such thing as worth, or value to human life. I mean that as the Lord's we shouldn't feel pressured to conform to the worlds ideas about self-worth. I'm not here for that. Instead -

 "As the elect of God, holy and beloved, put on tender mercies, kindness, humility, meekness, longsuffering; bearing with one another, and forgiving one another, if anyone has a complaint against another; even as Christ forgave you, so you also must do. But above all these things put on love, which is the bond of perfection. And let the peace of God rule in your hearts, to which also you were called in one body; and be thankful. Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom, teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord. And whatever you do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through Him." Colossians 3:12-17

Don't do things in your own name, worry about doing things in Christ's name. Prove this alone - the supreme grace and love of Christ abounding in and through you. Do not envy the treasures of the wicked. Do not chase after the fleeting joys of this life and miss out on the joy of fellowship with your Creator.

A proper first post -