What We Should Think About
What you think about as your head hits the pillow is often one of the first things you begin thinking about as you wake up. I’ve really tried to tune into this lately. It’s obvious that our life is a compilation of our thoughts, good and bad, that repeat themselves over and over.
It’s clear that these thoughts are mostly in our control. I say mostly because we cannot control every thought, just our reaction to them. But for most thoughts, it begins with what we choose to think about and what we choose to consume. Everything we fill our mind with will repeat somehow, whether it’s a song, movie, book, or sports game. One of the reasons I’ve noticed this so much more is because of late-night football games – I find myself waking up still seeing the deep throws from my favorite quarterbacks or the postgame interviews with the coaches. It’s not all bad. Sometimes it’s good, positive thoughts. But I don’t necessarily want to start every morning thinking about someone throwing footballs when there are a lot more important thoughts to focus on. So I say this preaching to myself as much as I share it with others, because I am in need of the gospel.
The clear answer to this problem comes straight from a Sunday school response: Jesus. But more specifically, the place where we find Jesus most practically in our habits is by reading the Bible. The Word of God. When we consume the Holy Bible, called so because it is set apart and inspired by our creator himself, we are filled with holy things. We think about righteous things and about important things. We think more about the fruit of the spirit and less about the movie we watched. And we continue to do this by meditating on God’s Word.
I’m fascinated with the Old Testament example the Israelites gave us of meditating on the law day and night. Every single morning and evening had dedicated time to meditating on God’s Word. Read through the very first Psalm as an example:
“But his delight is in the law of the Lord, and on his law he meditates day and night.” (Ps. 1:2)
Again at the beginning of Joshua, we see:
“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.” (Joshua 1:8a).
This wasn’t even the full Bible yet, either. They only had a few books, whereas we now possess 66 of them in one big book. How much more then, can we meditate on God’s word if they did so with even less?
Choose a few verses, passages, or even one line. Meditate on it in the morning and the evening, and watch your thought patterns. See how they change as you fall asleep to dream and wake up to get ready for work. What you fill yourself will repeat itself somehow, so meditate wisely.
