This past week was extra
stressful for me, and I was in a terrible mood. I didn’t even want to come out
of it all week long. Sometimes we know what the answer is, but we don’t want to
do it. Today I decided I better get myself right. When I asked the Lord to show
me what to put up for my preach letter, He directed me to this simple story
about Wendy and her son Jack. I listened, and here it is:
“Put him on
the phone.” My friend Wendy’s six-year-old son Jack didn’t feel like taking a
shower and was giving his grandma Mary a bad time. When Wendy was sure Jack was
on the phone, she measured out her words: “You need to get in that shower and
be clean by the time I get home.” “Okay,” he answered. Jack instantly changed
his mind and obeyed. What about us?
Children can
make changes easily and learn the benefits of obeying. They remain flexible and
grow. As we mature into adults, there’s no reason that has to change. So, how
do we do it?
Just this morning
I was feeling burdened, thinking I had too much to do. Then when I went to write
this, I heeded my own words: “Change your mind. It’s only a thought away.” So I
told myself, “It’s going to be a great
day.” My attitude instantly got brighter. Satan tried to get me to balk and
argue that it wasn’t going to be that easy. But I answered that thought with,
“No. With God, it is that easy!”
A rudder on a
ship is small, but it can take that ship and turn it around and make it go in a
different direction.
Romans 12:1
says: “Be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what
is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God.” So, by even one thought,
I can change the whole direction of my day and be pleasing to God. That’s
awesome!
A better day
is just a thought away.
We can only
think one thought at a time, and we have the power to choose the next thought.
“For as he thinketh [is thinking] in his heart, so is he” (Prov. 23:7). What
gets into our heart starts with one thought. A right thought is just one
thought away from a wrong one. And right thoughts come from the Word of God. It
really is just that simple.
Jack instantly
changed his wrong thought to the right one by listening to his mom and obeying.
We can do the same with God and the Lord Jesus Christ.
We are our own
best friends when we take a thought from God’s Word rather than one that
collides with it. Simplicity is a good thing. Life is not that hard if we keep
ourselves flexible and obedient like children, one deliberate thought at a
time.
Love, Carolyn
QUESTIONS AND
EASY CHALLENGES
1. Have you
recently had the opportunity to change your mind from wrong thoughts or
emotions to right ones? Did you do it quickly, as Jack did?
2. What does
it mean to you to re-new your mind as it says in Romans 12:1?
3. Like a
rudder on a ship, what small things have significant effects?
4. Try to
think two things at the same time. What happens?
5. What did
Jack do when his mom told him the right thing to think and do? Can you think of
one area in which you might apply this principle?
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