“Thinking is the hardest work there is, which is why so few people partake in it.”  Henry Ford

How do you define thinking?

I stay awake through the night, thinking about your promise.  (Psa. 119:148; NLT)

A little over a week ago, I published a DG entitled, “You’re Always Thinking.”  So what’s this “NOT” business about?  Am I changing my mind that quickly?  Well no, but I just read something that makes me want to expand on that a little bit.  Maybe it’s just a semantical issue, but I suspect it’s much larger than that.  Let me explain…

A better title might have been “You’re Always Engaged in Mental Activity.”  Besides being harder to say, what’s the difference?  Is there a difference between thinking and mental activity?

Read the rest of this entry »

“As you and I learn to improve and enlarge our ideas or mental pictures, to improve and enlarge our thinking, our life falls in form with this just as if we’ve moved the camera and took a different picture.”  Mary Morrissey

What do you envision your life to be like in 5 years?  What about 10 years?  What are you doing to move toward those dreams?

And now, dear brothers and sisters, let me say one more thing as I close this letter. Fix your thoughts on what is true and honorable and right. Think about things that are pure and lovely and admirable. Think about things that are excellent and worthy of praise.  (Phil. 4:8; NLT)

Last time we were together, we were discussing the various levels of development of a person’s mind.  I made the point that the amount of knowledge that a person has really has very little to do with whether that person’s mind was highly developed or little developed, i.e., a small mind.  I went on to suggest that a person’s attitude was more important than knowledge when it comes to their level of development.  I concluded with the bold statement that a small mind need not stay that way and that indeed, there is a very clear path to raise the level of development of anyone’s mind.  That’s when we ran out of space.

Picking up from there, let me say that it is a universal law that no mind can be greater than its conceptions, or no greater than what it can conceive or create (imagine) with that mind.  Therefore, working with that law simply means that a person who has an attitude or desire to grow need only imagine a new reality as great as their imagination will allow them to go…and no further.  They don’t need to reach for the stars, if all they can imagine is reaching the moon.

Once there is a clear envisioning of that preferred future, that person need only to begin to think and act in alignment with that desired future.  So once we start to improve and enlarge our thinking, our life begins to fall into place in congruency with that raised level of thinking.  Remember the oft repeated Proverb 23:7a that says “As a man thinks in his heart, so is he.”  Hopefully  you can see that the effort is not in reaching for the new level, but rather in maintaining a continual and sustained focus on the reality of that new imagined future.

Do you begin to see the natural upward spiral that we’re pre-programmed to follow?  Contrast that with the good (?) advice offered by the world that says, “Stop daydreaming!  Get your head out of the clouds.”  Sounds like the advice of people who want you to stay down at the lower level with them.

So, let’s pause this for the weekend and check for any feedback or questions.  I encourage you to use the comment box below.  Are you resonating with any of what I’m saying, or is it like rubbing a cat from the back forward.  Make it an awesome weekend and we’ll continue this line of thinking next week.

Prayer Power
Father, we thank You for programming our minds with a built in path for improvement.  That’s a clear statement of Your unfathomable love for us.

Link of the Day
Raising Your Consciousness

Blessings on you as you choose to travel the upward spiral.

“When we change our thinking for the better, we automatically change our life for the better.”  Bob Proctor

When is the last time you discovered that you were totally wrong about something that you were totally sure about?  How did you react?

Enjoy prosperity while you can. But when hard times strike, realize that both come from God. That way you will realize that nothing is certain in this life.  (Eccl 7:14; NLT)

Have you ever noticed that we’re always thinking?  Oh yes, we often hear the phrase, “just empty your mind,” but I confess I’ve never experienced an empty mind.  (And don’t think it’s anything I aspire to, either.)

Now, I will confess that there are times when my behavior must seem to others as if I wasn’t thinking about anything, i.e., empty-headed.  But what invariably is the case in such instances is that I was thinking about something else at the time instead of thinking about what I probably should have been paying attention to.  (BTW, before I turned grey, I used to be blonde.  We could have some fun with that couldn’t we, but I promise not to go there.)

But back to my point, i.e., thinking is a perpetual process.  Thinking, thinking, thinking…we’re always thinking.  And the interesting and scientifically validated fact is, that all this thinking we are doing every minute of our life is producing results that are highly visible to those around us, for our lives are like a mirror of our thoughts.  Scary, isn’t it?

Modern psychology has conclusively demonstrated that a change of our thinking pattern must precede every change in life.  Note that that change in thinking pattern can be from negative to positive or, heaven forbid, from positive to negative.

It has also been observed that there are various levels of development of a mind.  When I say level of development I am not referring to the amount of information stored there, but instead to the breadth of thought, openness to alternative views, freedom from prejudices, narrow convictions, and unwavering opinions.  That’s what some have called a small mind.  I’m sure we’ve all known individuals who have an alphabet of letters behind their names who are “puffed up” with all that knowledge and thereby extremely narrow minded, closed to new ideas, highly prejudiced, and highly opinionated…on everything.

Note that lots of knowledge is not a pre-requisite for a small mind.  Often the lack of knowledge can produce the same result.  So we can see that the level of a mind’s development really has little to do with the amount of knowledge it has access to.  Indeed, the case could be made that it has more to do with attitude than anything.  The good news is that the small mind need not stay small or underdeveloped.  it can grow to greatness.  The path is really quite clear.  But I’ve run out of words for this post.  Let’s explore that simple path in the next DG.  OK?

Prayer Power
Father, recorded history is filled with dogmatic individuals and groups who were certain about things which have since been proven to be totally untrue.  Help us to see that we are not any less susceptible to falling prey to thinking more of ourselves than we ought.

Link of the Day
Get a Better Mirror: Overcoming Negative Thoughts

Blessings on you as you are willing to open your mind to a new idea this week.

“Any belief can be contagious and a fatalistic belief has a fatal contagion in it.”  Mary Morrissey

Do the natural limitations of life come at you or do they come from you?  Why do you believe that to be true?

For as he thinks in his heart, so is he.  (Prov. 23:7a; NKJ)

We are created for a specific purpose and created in the image of God, so most would agree that we’re here to do God’s work. God’s work is creation. As agents of God and since God is the creator, we were given creative faculties. We’re here to create; to create a better world first of all for ourselves and then for everyone we come in contact with.  (Note the order…”Parents, put the oxygen mask on yourselves before you put it on your children.”)

The primary tool for creation that God has given each of us is our mind (not synonymous with our brain).  Every thing that man ever created started with a vision or a dream in his mind.  Some visions are positive and for mankind’s benefit, others are totally self-serving and often to mankind’s detriment.  Some of course, are neutral.

If one were totally honest with oneself, a look back at what was going on in their mind prior to any situation coming their way, more often than not they could see the direct correlation between what they were thinking about and what ultimately happened, i.e., their circumstances.  Of course, sometimes the thoughts are going on in the subconscious mind and we’re not even aware of them.  But, if we are really curious about what we were thinking, all we have to do is look at our circumstances.  To believe anything else is an admission that we are but helpless victims of life.

To really grasp this concept can be absolutely life changing.  It certainly has been for me.  I no longer wake up in the morning and wonder what is going to happen to me that day.  Now I wake up fully believing that it’s going to be a magnificent day…because I expect it to be so, and therefore think and behave accordingly.  Now I have my days when it doesn’t work as effortlessly as it should, but even those are getting fewer and fewer.

When something happens that is not quite what I would have preferred, I am learning that if I consciously choose what I would like to think about that event, then I get to choose what I make out of it rather than allow the event to “choose” what to make out of me.  In other words, I’m responsible for how I react…or more accurately, how I respond.  Life takes on a whole new meaning when I recognize that I’m not a powerless victim.

Anybody out there got any stories about this to share?

Prayer Power
Father, show us the truth to this simple, little, half-verse in Proverbs.  Our rational, Western minds tend to dismiss something as simple as our thoughts as having any bearing on our life.  Help us to get just a glimpse of the power that You have built into each and every one of us.

Link of the Day
You Are What You Think

Blessings on you as you purpose to “Make it a magnificent day!”

“You either master your mind and guide it intelligently, or your mind will master you and only produce the programs that have been installed upon it and within it from a world that operates from a scarcity and limited thinking.”  Mary Morrissey

When is the last time you said to someone, “I was wrong?”

Then Pharaoh urgently sent for Moses and Aaron. “I finally admit my fault,” he confessed. “The LORD is right, and my people and I are wrong.  (Exod. 9:27; NLT)

It’s been said that all our problems are mental in nature.  In other words, they’re only in our head.  Psychologists tell us that every individual is controlled by his convictions, whether he is aware of it or not. Such convictions largely determine the nature of our thinking.

If there’s truth in that, and I believe there is, then that becomes just cause for us to seriously examine some of our convictions or our beliefs.  We need to be able to point to good, sound reasons for the views that we hold.  If we honestly challenge some of our beliefs, I am quite sure that we will find many that have no basis in reality whatsoever.  However, I’m convinced that we too often get lazy and just allow many of those old convictions to just lie (pun intended) there and drive our behavior in ways that don’t truly serve us.

This opportunity take on some new ways of seeing things seems to have happened to me a lot over the last several years.  I’ve shared some of that with you over the past 15 months…sometimes with fear and trepidation.  I’ve discovered that even when I’ve become convinced that a new way is better than the old, it’s still very hard to let go of the old.  I read somewhere that a fellow named Jack Boland once said, “Don’t let your present good become the enemy of the better.”

All this to say that I’m feeling the urge to start challenging some of my (and your?) thinking and convictions over the next several weeks.  I’m not exactly sure where this is going, but hopefully you’re willing to come along for the ride.  For an extremely recent example of this challenge to my thinking, you have only to go back to Monday’s DG.  As a died-in-the-wool conservative, I thought that liberal and patriot was an oxymoron.  Back a couple of weeks ago, I was reacting to the impact of The Shack on some of my theology.  The list is longer than I care to think about.

It seems that when you open your mind to the possibility that you’ve been wrong…all kinds of opportunities seem to come out of nowhere.  Perhaps some of the most powerful and life-changing words to come out of our mouths just might be, “I was wrong.”

Care come along and be challenged with me?

Prayer Power
Father, we thank You that You recognized our humanness made provision to redeem us from the many times we are wrong.  Grant us the courage to be able to more freely admit our errors

Link of the Day
Admit You Are Wrong!

Blessings on you as you choose to approach someone close to you and say, “I was wrong.”