At the beginning of this year, I prayed a prayer God was delighted to answer. He did not delay in answering this prayer. No hesitation. Nope, I didn’t have to wait.
I prayed, “Lord, purify my heart.”
Immediately, the Lord began the pruning process. The Master Gardener cut off the most obvious wild branches — haughtiness, envy, jealousy, offense, doubt, fear, worry. Amazing how comfortable those sins become as I easily justified them until I prayed the four word prayer.
But then the Lord took me another step into the pruning process. He began to thin out the small branches in my thought life. Why? Because Scripture says…
“Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it” (Proverbs 4:23 NIV).
Many times in the Bible the heart includes the mind. There’s no doubt if we dwell on a thought long enough, it will manifest into an action. How many times have you seen a commercial and just had to have what you saw?
So when God dealt with my thought life, I noticed that I debated with people in my mind. Of course, because it was my imagination, I won due to the fact that my point of view was the best point possible. And, they conceded. Yet in reality, any transaction that I conducted with those particular people throughout my day never resulted the way I imagined it.
Then while one morning while out for a walk, I stirred up an argument with someone in my mind. Someone I’m unlikely to encounter and even if I did, I realized the conversation would never go in that direction. But boy, would I like to let them know my thoughts, then I could fix them and save the world. At least a small part of it anyway.
This time I recognized the mental dispute. Then I prayed, “Lord, what do I do? I’m sorry.” A Scripture I memorized sometime back came to my thoughts.
“We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ” (2 Corinthians 10:5).
Immediately I demolished that argument in my head. It was not of God. I surrendered my thoughts to Christ. To destroy that thought, I prayed blessings over the person that was in my thoughts. I asked God to bless them, their work, and their family.
Within an hour, my outlook on everyone around me turned from pessimistic to optimistic. Joy filled me up. And the little things that previously ripped me throughout the day was nothing more than lint on my jacket.
Our thoughts matter. God showed us in Philippians 4:8 the kinds of things we are to think upon.
“Finally, brothers and sisters, 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.”
Therefore, I am now making (mental) lists of everything that is lovely, admirable, excellent, and praiseworthy about others in my life. Amazing how it has shifted my perspective 180 degrees.
What are you thinking?
© 2014 Shonda Savage
