For Us Over-Thinkers

Rob and I are both thinkers. Admittedly we can be over-thinkers.

If there's anyone out there familiar with a series called Twilight, lol, the vampires in it don't sleep. To me, that always sounded absolutely dreadful! Because I love sleep, yes, but also because I love that it kind of gives my mind a break.

Anyway, last night I came across a chapter in a book Rob got that I hijacked called "Anxious for Nothing" (God's Cure for the Cares of Your Soul) by John MacArthur. In it is a section I want to keep mulling over. It's a bit about worry, but also about thinking and faith...here's an excerpt:

Recall that Jesus said, "Look at the birds of the air, that they do not sow, nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not worth much more than they?" (Matt 6:26). Martyn Lloyd-Jones, commenting on that verse explained:

Faith according to our Lord's teaching... is primarily thinking... We must spend more time in studying our Lord's lessons in observation and deduction. The Bible is full of logic, and we must never think of faith as something purely mystical. We do not just sit down in an armchair and expect marvelous things to happen to us. That is not Christian faith. Christian faith is essentially thinking. Look at the birds, think about them, and draw your deductions. Look at the grass, look at the lilies of the field, consider them...

Faith, if you like, can be defined like this: It is a man insisting upon thinking when everything seems determined to bludgeon and knock him down... The trouble with the person of little faith is that, instead of controlling his own thought, his thought is being controlled by something else, and, as we put it, he goes round and round in circles. That is the essence of worry... That is not thought; this is the absence of thought, a failure to think.

Sometimes my over-thinking can be useless and futile, because there can be many times where I just feel like I'm going "round and round in circles". I wouldn't naturally think that my over-thinking was tied to worry, but it definitely shows that it's not tied to faith. I like that last paragraph of the excerpt the best. True thought isn't going round and round in circles. Obviously you get nowhere with that. Lots more in the chapter, but that part really spoke to me. One more part that I think is key...

Since we still live in a fallen world, however, our renewed minds need ongoing cleansing and refreshment. Jesus said that God's chief agent for purifying our thinking is His Word (John 15:3). Paul reiterated that concept many times... (Romans 12:1-2; Ephesians 4:23; Colossians 3:10; 1 Thessalonians 5:21)

Disciplining our thoughts is key...because our thoughts ultimately determine what we do and say. Yep, lots of good stuff in there for me, and maybe for you.

Happy Thanksgiving EVE everyone!! Hip Hip!! I hope you all have a great day filled with loved ones. Anyone ever make it to the Macy's Thanksgiving parade in NYC?? Oh goodness, is that a dream of mine.