Focused Thinking

You may be thinking that I have too much time on my hands to be playing out in the wildflowers with stuffed animals. I have been thinking the opposite: that I need to seize the days while the flowers are blooming, because they will be seeded or mowed shortly to make way for the dry, wilted days of Texas summer. I get a kick out of collecting fun characters at garage sales and sticking them in the flowers. Call me crazy, but their personalities, though only fabrications, seem to be joyful in the flowers. I know I am happy, feel close to God, my imagination is fired, and my thinking is catapulted to peaceful and spiritual things. I hope by the capturing of their playfulness and happiness that some of that joy will be passed on to you as encouragement to guard your thoughts and practice being pure and happy. I remember a little jingle that advised, "don't worry, be happy!"

I have used the example before of a person telling you "Don't think of the color, BLUE." Well, of course something blue pops into your head. Being proactive, you might use a positive statement of "THINK of the color, PURPLE." The WORD of GOD gives us a similar course of action: the Philippian hymn in Ch. 2 starts out, "Let this mind be in you which was in Christ Jesus!" Wow, how on earth can anyone do that? Actually, in a couple more chapters we get proactive suggestions about how to do it. We are advised in Ch. 4:8-9 to think about what is true, noble, right, pure, lovely, admirable, praiseworthy, and elegant. Think about the things you have received and heard from God or seen in him and put them into practice. His peace will be with you.

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Those who are pure in their thinking are happy,
because they will be with God.
Matthew 5:8