What if the answer to one question could determine your contentment in life?
It can and it does. Here it is:
Do you think about what you think about?
Most people allow thoughts to enter and exit their brains without paying much attention to the flow. What we do notice, though, is our emotions—especially our intense negative ones—like worry, resentment, anger or fear. Toss in a smidge of jealousy, frustration or regret and you’ve got a full-blown recipe for a mental meltdown. Or in more mild situations, feeling blue. Or blah. Or bummed.
Anything but content and at peace.
My mentor, the late Anne Ortlund, used to say, “90% of living takes place between your ears.”
Negative thoughts never lead to a positive life.
This morning I opened my Bible and noticed words I’d scribbled across the top of a page many months ago. “What you feed grows”.
If you feel something consistently it’s because you’ve fed it continually.
My Pastor-hubby, JP, explains the thought/emotion/action correlation using the analogy of a pot of boiling water on a stove. “The fire of our thoughts boils the water of our emotions, which produces the steam of our actions.” You can control the steam one of two ways:
- Put on a bigger lid.
- Turn down the heat.
Bigger lids never work because lids only cover real issues. Eventually, steam seeps out. You’ve seen it, lived it, and so have I.
Be nice.
Don’t lose your patience.
Bite your tongue.
These mantras are fine for a moment, but over the long haul our real feelings boil over into our actions like steam on a raging stove. The only way to manage our actions is to manage our emotions. We manage our emotions by managing our thoughts.
In other words, we must think about what we think about. The principle is all over the pages of the Bible.
“And now, dear brothers and sisters, one final thing. Fix your thoughts on what is true, and honorable, and right, and pure, and lovely, and admirable. Think about things that are excellent and worthy of praise.” (Philippians 4:8)
“Guard your heart above all else, for it determines the course of your life.” (Proverbs 4:23)
Negative thoughts never lead to a positive life.
That’s not to say we have to live with our heads in the sand, avoiding all problems. It does mean, though, we must weed the negative not feed the negative, especially as it relates to thought patterns that steal our peace, sap our strength and rob our joy.
If you feed the negative you’ll feel the negative.
How do you live this in real life?
For starters, instead of circling around your problems over and over, square off against your problems. Check out the free “Square Off” download on my home page (or click here). I spoke about this easy tool at the KKLA Women’s Night Out event last Friday. This can help clarify your thinking whenever you start feeling like your thoughts are spinning out of control, threatening to take your emotions (and your peace!) with them.
For a little extra added help experiencing more peace and contentment no matter what circumstances you face today, grab a piece of paper and try the following:
At the top of a piece of paper write the name of a person, place or presenting problem that’s occupied your mind with negative thoughts, leading to negative emotions and/or negative actions. Pick one of the following exercises to do daily for the next week.
- List everything true, good, excellent or praiseworthy about the person, place or problem.
- Give thanks (out loud, if possible) for the person, place or problem. This person, place or problem might just be the answer to your holiest prayer—to make you more like Jesus.
- On one side of a page write your problem, on the other write down the characteristics of God. Look at your problem in light of God’s sovereignty, power, goodness and love for you.
- Spend five minutes talking to God about the person, place or problem, then (and this is key!) spend five minutes listening to God as He talks to you about the person, place or problem.
The answer to one question determines your peace and your contentment. It’s not “how good are my circumstances?” Rather, it’s “how good am I at thinking about what I think about in the midst of my circumstances?”
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