This past weekend I preached on the first 9 verse in Phillippians 4. I really didn’t have time to do this passage justice. Paul at the end of chapter 3 talks about enemies of the cross and how they have their minds on earthly things. In four he spends some time on what we need to be focused and some things to avoid. For instance being thankful rather than anxious. “Dwelling” on or “thinking about” whatever is true, honorable, right, pure, lovely, of good repute, things excellent and worthy of praise.
In a conversation with my new colleague Jane we both noted how easy we find it to dwell on things that are negative, such as, criticism. Many people can receive a hundred compliments and then have one person criticize them and find themselves fixated for hours on the one criticism. The reality is no one is responsible for what we dwell on other than ourselves. We are responsible for the content that gets repeatedly replayed in our heads.
This is good news. We can choose not to dwell on what is negative, painful, hurtful, and/or what Paul might refer to as earthly things. We can choose to replace those thoughts. I find the most helpful way to do this is to have a plan for dealing with the most common invaders in our heads.
For example, when anxiety comes learning to recognize the anxiety and choose to switch to giving thanks. I have physically sat down and wrote out a gratitude list to shift my attitude. When I have fought resentment with a particular person, I have sought to pray for them when I encounter them and find my anger provoked. I pray for their health and happiness. If they are a hurtful person, I try to consider what their hurt is because the maxim, “hurting people, hurt people” tends to hold true.
Another great way to reorient our minds is to utilize particular thoughts or attitudes as a trigger to rehearse a particular scripture verse. For instance, when feelings of helplessness or hopelessness rears its head, learning to respond by saying reciting something like Phillipians 4:13, “I can do all things through Him who strengthens me.”
I will say that replacement thinking like this is usually not an immediate fix to my mindset. My experience has been that it does get me back into a place of consciously managing or leading my thoughts, attitudes, and inner times of reflecting. Over time I usually see a shift in my baseline if I will maintain the practice. I find myself more self aware and as a result not as jerk around by my thoughts and emotions. I also find that I am more readily able to recognize times when my mind is less than Christ-like and then able to address it with prayer.
Paul assures us that when we do these things we will both experience the peace of God and the God of peace. When you get done reading this I would suggest quickly jotting down a short list of those things you tend to dwell on that you would like to eliminate. What is some thing true, right, honorable, pure, etc. that you could dwell on in its place. Don’t just wait for the negative thought to come. Start taking time to reflect as Paul suggests immediately. Be on the proactive side of this and saturate your head and heart with scripture or Christ pleasing thoughts now. Blessings from The Practical Disciple.