Guest blog by Jill Scifres of @odditblue on twitter.
Ever had a thought you wish you could forget? Of course, we all have. We’ve all been plagued with thoughts we wish would leave our heads and never return. It seems the more we try to forget them and despise those thoughts, the more they come back over and over. Vicious circle.
But how to get rid of these unwanted thoughts? What if we could somehow fill our mind with other things until the unwanted thoughts had no room to fly around in there and distract us? Is there a way to make our minds new again? Romans 12:2 says, “And do not imitate this world, but be transformed by the renovation of your minds, and you shall distinguish what is the good, acceptable and perfect will of God.” Renovation of our minds… that sounds wonderful to me! Now, how to renew our minds… how to change our thinking?
To change or renew our minds, we don’t need to try to just not think the thoughts we don’t want in our heads. This only makes them all the more prominent. We need to find new thoughts instead. Let’s look at our minds in simple terms. Our mind is very much like a sponge. Sponges soak up things inside and hold them there. If I take a sponge that is dry and pour dish soap over it, the sponge will become saturated with dish soap. Afterward, I can hold the sponge under running water and squeeze it, and suds will come out of it. In fact, I can hold it there a long time running water, squeezing and repeating over and over and it takes a very long time before I can squeeze it and have no more suds coming out of that sponge. It is saturated in what I poured into it the first time. The thoughts we introduce to our minds are like that dish soap. Whatever goes in our minds is going to come out in our lives and linger in our thoughts, and it will take a whole lot of water to wash away what we don’t want in there.
To change or renew our minds, we don’t need to try to just not think the thoughts we don’t want in our heads. This only makes them all the more prominent. We need to find new thoughts instead. Let’s look at our minds in simple terms. Our mind is very much like a sponge. Sponges soak up things inside and hold them there. If I take a sponge that is dry and pour dish soap over it, the sponge will become saturated with dish soap. Afterward, I can hold the sponge under running water and squeeze it, and suds will come out of it. In fact, I can hold it there a long time running water, squeezing and repeating over and over and it takes a very long time before I can squeeze it and have no more suds coming out of that sponge. It is saturated in what I poured into it the first time. The thoughts we introduce to our minds are like that dish soap. Whatever goes in our minds is going to come out in our lives and linger in our thoughts, and it will take a whole lot of water to wash away what we don’t want in there.
In Ephesians 5 the Bible speaks of cleansing by the washing with water through the word. This tells us the word of God can be cleansing to our lives like water. The best way to immerse ourselves in the word of God is to do more than just read through it lightly. We need to really dive right in, begin to seriously study and soak up the words and ideas getting these deep into our minds and thoughts. We should keep on thinking about each scripture, mulling over what we’ve read again and again. We must learn how to meditate on what we’ve read. Joshua 1:8 says to us “Do not let this Book of the Law depart from your mouth; meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do everything written in it…” Meditation is also mentioned again in Psalm 1:2 “But his delight is in the law of the LORD, and on his law he meditates day and night.”
Our minds are also a lot like the soil. In Mark chapter four, Jesus spoke in a parable of one who planted the word like seeds into different kinds of ground. Some ground was soft and receptive, some was hard and stony and some was full of weeds. Each type of ground made a difference in how the seeds, or the words, were received. Ground that is full of weeds will choke out new seeds and keep them from growing. Stony ground is either too hard to let the seeds sink in, or it is too rocky to let the seeds mature enough to produce anything. Only soft soil that is good will allow the seeds to bear fruit from what was planted. I heard a pastor talking about how to change our hearts and minds to be more receptive, he said, "You just plow on into the Word and it will change you." He means, you begin reading and studying and really getting into the Bible, and it will change your thoughts. Plow into God's Word. Let the words you read "seed your mind." Let what you read sink in and take hold in your thoughts.
Next, you let what you've read and studied begin to grow in your thoughts. It will happen. Keep reading and you'll see God's word will begin to pop into mind when you experience little things in your day. When it is planted in you, His word will begin to grow inside and bring about change. You'll notice your thoughts begin to change and all the old thoughts will begin to come to mind less and less the more you keep reading and digging into the Bible every day.
So come on! Are you ready for a mind that has been renovated? I know I am. Let's go!
Great post. It is something I know I can work harder on. :)
ReplyDeletethis is amazingly true and how we can over see it and miss it if we aren't in the right track
ReplyDeleteThese are the best analogies I've heard yet regarding renewing our minds and soaking up the Word. (Pun intended)
ReplyDeleteThanks, Jill! This was GREAT!
Love the dish soap analogy, very descriptive and powerful. What we put in, will in some form come out. We must be careful, bad habits are hard to break.
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