Listen to your thoughts

"For as he thinketh in his heart; so is he"

-Prov. 23:7

You are what you think. A lesson I have been learning repeatedly over the past 2 years. For

some reason I feel God has impressed it upon my heart to really focus on what goes on in my mind. I am not one who can easily overlook or pass a thought nonchalantly in any manner, instead I tend to examine a thought from multiple angles, feel the thought, question the thought, analyze it, and ultimately break it down into microscopic sub-thoughts until it is no longer a single thought, but somehow connected to my entire being. I know...it sounds insane, but the point is that there is a profound essence in the way we think that, on the surface, may seem frivolous or unimportant, but in reality it may well just be a building block of something bigger and more mentally powerful that cultivates the way we see ourselves and the world we live in. Most of the time our thoughts seem to circulate in our heads, in other words, we t

end to tell ourselves or think the same things over and over again because we have chosen to give in to that thought, and so by allowing the thought to enter into our minds, we are feeding our mentalities (which lead to perspectives/outlook on life) with these thoughts that are digested and remain present until we make an active effort to remove them. For me, thoughts have shown themselves to be quite powerful in my life, because when I examine my current thoughts I can see that it directly correlates with the way my life is lived. The importance of being "mentally" alert has struck a resounding chord within me, and has made me realize that I have been feeding my mind with "lukewarm" thoughts that have been hindering the more excellent and grand perspective that I know God desires for me to have. By

allowing these "stale" thoughts to fester in the crevices of my mind, I was allowing a "stale" perspective on myself and on life to grow larger and larger with each dose of a single "lukewarm" thought. But by the grace of God I can be set free from this type of thinking, and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding is what will reconcile my mind to let go of such thoughts that take away from what God wants me to see. It's been a struggle these days to really grasp my faith in God, and I was beginning to think that nothing was really making sense, and that logic was nowhere to be found or even slightly felt...leaving me feeling overwhelmingly confused and hopeless, which also led to feeling miserable about life and empty

since life without God just seemed so meaningless. But God loves me, and that love is so powerful, powerful enough to override logic in someone like me who over thinks and analyzes everything in order to make sense of it, because it felt like an alarm clock in my mind kept going off about how my mind was under attack, and that I needed to examine my cognitive activity more than just my external environment. The world is so easy to see with physical eyes, we tend to forget that most of what we see and know all come from how we perceive them first in the mind. So then it would only go to show that how we think directly influences how we act, live, and thrive with others and towards ourselves. I definitely have som

e strongholds in my mind that need to be broken down, and the "stale" thoughts to be destroyed for good so that I will be able to administer the hopeful, promising thoughts of God's will for my life, His good and perfect will.

Philippians 1:6-

"⁶being confident of this, that he who began a good work

in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus."

I need to begin today by carefully examining my thoughts and being aware of when the stale one's start surfacing (to extinguish them right away) and replace them with thoughts of strength, power, and joy and love.