Day 3919 of the 7 day Bible verse challenge.

Ephesians 4:23 NIV

Thinking

I pray we’ll all come to find just how powerful an opportunity it truly offers unto the general betterment of at first we as people and then, if undertaken as such, onward into the betterment of our people as a people filled then with people who have undergone the enduring process of improving at first as a person with or without the audacity to imagine that doing such on such a small scale could in fact swell into the improvement of an entire culture if not this entire creation.

Alas, it stands daily obvious, and that in a growing clarity, that our thoughts and thinking aren’t quite aimed at such a hopeful outcome.

Instead it seems that most of us here spend the vast majority of our lives thinking mostly only about ourselves and either the few improvements our arrogance can allow us to imagine we might need to make or, and seemingly more likely the case these days, that we’ve already improved ourselves to what’s become something of a finish line assumed beyond which we cannot seem to see any further need to so continue in that now alien estimation that we might be what others are not or that we aren’t what others think themselves to be.

Either way this world is packed with people who think themselves already perfect or in fact so worthless that they’ve similarly conceded every remaining opportunity to try for the more than that all of us can, at least whilst here, always become.

And it’s this solemn reality that seems to be daily spreading wildly if not violently as we again watch a world give over their thoughts to the thinking of things that are neither honest nor helpful nor humble nor even healthy. Indeed, and again, as always I speak quite personally, I know well the danger posed in so many of these thoughts we’ve as a people come to think. Thoughts about material wealth and public approval. Thoughts of what’s best for us and how it matters more that our wants are met before another’s needs satisfied.

Thoughts about how God should maybe do a little more to make this journey a little easier on those of us who are doing all we can to show unto Him that we’re trying as hard as we can to measure up to whatever it is that we think He’s looking for.

That last one hit so close to home that I’ve literally danced with it two somewhat sleepless nights in a row.

Because it’s the way I know. It’s the way we all know. We all know to give our thinking over to that estimation that we’re always either the victors or victims, the champions or villains who deserve such an ongoing clarity that everything we say and do is understood so clearly that we never again risk being wrong unless we blatantly just decide to be. Indeed, we all want to have this ease of mind in regard to our time and how we’re choosing to spend it.

But the problem is that we’re as a people now so upended that we don’t really know how to think clearly at all.

Rather it seems that almost every thought brings with it its own argument. Maybe it’s just me, always definitely a possibility, but it seems that life has become something of this constant struggle between these always opposing ideas as are somehow always aimed at proving one another wrong. It’s like we’ve taken that old school practice of making a pros and cons list and turned it into an every second of the day undertaking.

And while it may be for good reason as it seems to say that we’re at least trying to measure our way and do as the Word says is wise and give thought to our steps, the issue is that there seems as much danger in our fondness for overthinking as there is in our fondness for not really thinking at all.

In fact, it might not hurt to start with that.

How is it that we can think so much about some things and yet seem to think next to little about others?

I mean, there are so many times in each of our lives in which we’ve said things or done things that we obviously hadn’t thought through. Each of us have experienced that mostly reactionary kind of life in which we just sort of bounce from one choice to another never really seeming to care what comes from any of them. In fact there used to be this old figure of speech that we’d toss out there to sort of remind someone else of the necessity of a slower and more measured approach to whatever it was that had just been said or could well be assumed might be said thanks to a relatively clear to see past tendency to overlook the point being made.

Think before you speak.

Look before you leap.

Just make sure that what you’re about to say or do is going to get you to where you want to be rather than only into one more regretful meeting with humility found only the hard way.

Alas, we’re, as the Bible points out at least a few times, quite stubborn and stiff-necked when it comes to things like this. And that because we seem to rather enjoy this one main thought that seems to all but explain all of the others. And that thought is that we know best. That we know what we’re doing. That we run so little risk of being wrong, saying something we shouldn’t, doing something we might come to regret that we simply don’t need to spend any time thinking about.

That we can just fly through life giving no thought to our words or actions simply because we either think we’re good enough at most things that we don’t need to or because we just don’t care what comes from them at all.

And sadly, it seems anymore that the vast majority of human thinking has settled upon a rather horrifying blend of the both.

That we’re just so amazing at everything that we don’t need to worry about what may or may not happen as by then we’ll be so past it that it won’t matter to us anymore.

And this is such a horrifying approach to the rather important opportunity that it is to have this ability to think because, well, when we choose to not do something as if it matters, all that can really come of it is at best a disappointment if not at worst an utter disaster.

And I think we should all be able to agree that we should be rather disappointed at the disaster that much of life has become thanks to our thinking that we’re good enough at everything from thinking to thus living that we needn’t any help whatsoever but rather just need to be left alone, hopefully to lead the way, to what would then be such a better way of life spent in such a better place that everyone around us would have to thank us for taking the stand at the head of the pack and ensuring the communal finding of such an improved way of living.

Except that anymore we suck so bad at thinking that it seems most of us are just kind of over the deal and have instead settled for just doing the same things over and over again as doing so allows us to never really have think at all.

Because there’s nothing to figure out or understand when all you do is all you’ve already done.

It’s like that adage in regard to riding a bike. It does seem that you really don’t forget it once you’ve done it. Granted, you may grow somewhat rusty depending upon the amount of time removed from your last ride. But thankfully it comes back pretty quick and you’re right back to the same ability you may have learned years ago.

But that’s kind of the problem with our somewhat growingly obvious stagnancy in regard to thought and thinking.

For, as we’ve kind of been talking about a little of late, if all we ever do is all we’ve ever done, then how can we ever become that something better that our every past cannot prove? Same goes with our thoughts and thinking. If all we ever think about is only that which we long ago thought mattered most or thought we understood as best as we possibly could, how then can we ever learn anything else? If life itself is only lived on repeat, then the past is left to become the future and the present nothing but the waiting room between the reflection.

Is that what we truly think life is supposed to be? Just more of whatever it already was?

Granted, this is in some ways a battle waged within my own thoughts. For the Bible tells us that it’s unwise to ask such questions as why the old days were better than these we’re living now. And yet I find that anymore I look around and somehow manage to see at least a few dozen ways in which the life I lived as a kid back then seemed better than what life has become since. It was more peaceful then. People got along more easily. There didn’t seem to be such division or political disdain. Cars were cooler. Clothes were too. Music was. TV was.

It seems like so many things used to be better than whatever this is that we’re living in today.

Yet it’s unwise to ask such questions as to why the old days were better than these.

But in my thinking, as often feeble and fumbling as it seems to be, it seems to me that it might be unwise to ask such questions because perhaps the answer is obvious. And that answer is both because the past had plenty of its own problems and there’s still at least some good to be found today. And too that the world seems to be getting worse because sin is growing more widespread and obvious.

And this is seen, as easily as in many other sights and sounds, in the fact that we don’t seem to think as much anymore. Rather we’ve seen this growth in arrogance that has many of us just sitting still inside what we seem to honestly assume is a life being so perfectly lived that to change would be criminal.

And we don’t want to become criminals because breaking the law is a bad thing.

Or so we once thought.

Or at least some of us did until we took it upon ourselves to use our ability to think to think of reasons or excuses that we could use to make it seem logical to amend the laws we’ve made to make more things legal so as to benefit from the taxes we could impose upon the sale thereof.

No names mentioned but you see the shops in basically every strip mall anymore. They’re the stores with all the bright colors, flashing lights, advertisements all over the windows and, ironically, almost always next to some kind of place that sells food/snack based offerings.

Yeah, we became a people who apparently agreed that legalizing that which alters your mind was somehow a good thing.

Proving yet again the power of thought and how, if not wielded well, can in fact come back to bite us bad.

Not that it’s always a good thing to say that things are getting worse, but it’s also always best to speak the truth and, well, not much seems to be getting better.

Anyway, as I sometimes do, I seem to have digressed.

So back to the point.

And that point is that our minds are, or at least at one time were, quite powerful things as they’re the place in which such things as logic and reason exist(ed). And it’s those things like logic and reason that are in fact God-given and that because He gives unto each of us the things He knows we need to uphold His will which is, above all, for our to be holy as He is the same. Indeed, all that God does is to prove His holiness and authority amongst all of His creation.

Problem then becomes that our society has clearly become of the mind that thinks that holiness is at best a virtue to be aimed for but never truly reached (due our vast tendency to fall short thereof) or at worst something that only a few losers worry about.

Indeed, I believe there are quite a few studies and surveys out there which show that our culture today is the most irreligious that it’s ever been. And granted, that’s something of a hard case to make as they weren’t doing surveys in ancient times and so such places as Sodom and Gomorrah could have, at least in theory, had something to say in regard to who’s the unholiest of them all. But still, point is that folks are thinking less of such things as faith and religion and every mere human responsibility.

And we’re seeing the outcome every single day.

And yet we’re told not to worry about it because our pointing out the plausible dangers up ahead along the paths our world is choosing to walk is widely thought as a quite unloving thing to do.

Yes, we think it rude to speak the truth as apparently most captives think it better to live their lives in captivity.

Seems maybe then like our ability to think has its own ability to backfire.

A point to be proven later, or so I’m told in such promises as how there are these ways that man thinks are right that lead only to death. Such as that eternal version thereof promised unto all who think it a good idea to live their lives denying He who holds the key to the gates beyond which await either eternal punishment or unending peace.

But apparently I’m one of those few losers who spend their time thinking about such things, and that so much that I genuinely want to see none so perish but to instead opt for the option of salvation.

Maybe thinking doesn’t always backfire.

And so thus maybe there’s hope.

How much? At this point I have no idea.

But I’m thinking on it!

As we all should be. For that seems to be the point of edification in its entirety. It’s to join whatever forces we have, be them those of a community in which we all gather together to seek for the growth of one another or even just combining our own personal abilities and interests into ensuring that our thoughts match our words and our words shown in our actions and our actions achieve the better that we can all hopefully still believe we can become.

But again the point is improvement in whatever way(s) it may be both possible and thus needed. For indeed, anywhere where growth is possible, it’s probably needed. Granted, we can grow in sin and sadly we seem to clearly see a great and growing many who apparently think it a good idea to do so, but such just shows the danger posed by our thoughts and why we should all do as asked and take every single one of those suckers captive so as to ensure that they’re in line with who, what and where we want to be.

And if we don’t yet know who, what or where we want to be, start by asking yourself if who, what and/or where you are is where, what and/or who you want to stay. And if it isn’t, then congratulations you know at least something of humility and that will serve you well going forward. If on the other hand you’re mostly content with what you see and who you are and where you stand, then again, congratulations because you’ve plenty of room to grow my friend!

Because the simple fact is that growing and improving and learning the right and wrong ways to do both is something that is truly a gift from God. He allows us to think, gives us the opportunity to do so. He lets us think so that we can grow in our understanding of things. And from understanding we can then glean wisdom. And wisdom is something that can in fact mean so much as to help all of us both improve as a person and then work together to grow as a people.

But only when we are made new in the attitudes of our minds.

Why?

Because again, if all our minds are ever willing to consider is that which either already is or always was, then all we can ever be is but a repeat of the past. And sure, the past may have had quite a lot of pretty great things going on. But friends, nothing we’ve seen or been before has anything on what and where and who we can still become in Christ.

I mean, He literally promises us all eternal life.

And well, that just tops this version we’re living right now in what is a place that’s vastly imperfect and that so much so that we’re all promised here only to die.

Yeah, His way is thus so clearly better that we really needn’t even think about it.

But no, that’s not in any way the challenge that so many here have made it out to be. It’s rather just pointing out the obvious in that we’d better start thinking more about His way because, well, ours really isn’t amount to much of anything good.

No, we need to be made new in how we think because, as I’ve learned in so many ways in recent years, changing your mind can and will change your life. And while thankfully those changes in and to my life in recent years have been undeniably for the good, the issue is that the same can be said of the other direction. For as much as one can change their attitude toward exercise and begin working out and getting healthier, so too could one get only unhealthier should their thinking only inspire to find reasons or excuses to do so.

Kind of like where the Bible talks about how those who were righteous but chose to begin living wickedly will have their old ways forgotten and be thus remembered for only their thinking it a good idea to live in wickedness. But so too shall those who were wicked have their pasts forgiven and indeed forgotten should they turn from their wickedness and begin thinking in ways that lead rather to righteousness.

Either way the point is that our thoughts dictate the direction we take in life.

And we can all see clearly then who we’ve been as the result of what and how we’ve thought.

If you’re good with what you see and who you are, then keep trying to better the both.

And if you’re not, then start.

Because the fact is we’re running out of time to be made new in our minds and thus come to find the promise of life that’s given only unto those who embrace His intention of making all things new.

And for once that’s not just me thinking.

#LeaveNoSoulUntold