Thought Life Archives • Page 6 of 6 • The Littlest Way

October 7, 2014 by Jenny

Online Bible Study

One of the unexpected joys of the internet is the opportunity for online Bible study. Some of us live outside of town, have 5 little soccer players who each have their own team because I guess it wouldn’t be right to have a six year old playing against a fourteen year old. Some of us are introverts (Hi There) and yet God plopped us in the middle of bustling house full of children and by the end of the day, the thought of more conversation makes us want to curl up in our closet. And sometimes, it’s just that kind of season in life, where you want some community, but on your own terms. An online Bible study is perfect for that season.

Did you know I’m taking part in a 31 Days writing Group? I am and I picked reading and writing about the book of Sirach; my own personal online Bible study…shared with you.

Maybe around five years ago when I was really struggling with my mind, I came across this verse found in Sirach 30:21-23

And I realized the truth in it…I was part of my problem. There were some extenuating circumstances that needed to be addressed and resolved, but the thoughts I allowed to roll around in my mind were keeping me hostage to anxiety, depression and fear as well.

I started searching for tips, tricks and tools to help me get out of this rut of destructive and negative thinking. The Bible. Yes, my Bible–my rarely used, under appreciated, hard to find, dusty Bible–turned out to be one of the major helps in overcoming my mind. (The other was The 4:8 Principle: The Secret to a Joy-Filled Life by Tommy Newberry) Although I looked, at the time, I could not find an online Bible study that addressed the problem I was ready to break free from.

I found “Scriptures about Depression.” Or, “Depression Scriptures,” but nothing that addressed the problem biblically and then taught me to use those scriptures to fight the bad thinking habits I had become accustomed to. And no, I am not saying or even implying depression is just a bad thinking habit. I’m telling you, that what I was struggling with at the time: anxiety, fear and some depression was being fed…and boy howdy did I feed it good…it was being fed by my bad thinking habits.

I would feel bad, so I would consider how bad I felt. And I’d think about how bad I had felt the day before and how bad I was probably going to feel tomorrow. I would read the scriptures of the broken hearted, the lost, forsaken and desperate. But after coming across this verse, I started searching out verses about “Delight,” “Gladness,” and “Rejoicing.” I had my own little online Bible study, just me and my computer.

I would love to say it was easy to just sit down, read happy Bible verses and then feel happy. It was not easy. But it was simple. All I needed to do was make time with God reading His Word. The more time I spent with God in His Word, I noticed some of those old thinking habits changing. Slowly…slowly and every so often they would and still do, rear their ugly head. But I have the solution–time with God in the Bible…the tools, to combat my old thinking habits and it began by looking for an online Bible study.

September 23, 2014 by Jenny

What Does the Bible say About Our Thoughts?

Yesterday, actually really late last night, I picked back up our “Journey to Joy.” I mentioned how I used to let my mind be filled with whatever came along and sometimes even sought out the really emotional junk. That was a bad habit and my mind, my life, suffered because of it. I realized in order to change my life, I needed to change my mind and the words I spoke to myself…my daily affirmations.

A couple of weeks ago, I wrote, “Who I Want to Be…A Joy Thinker.” Making that decision years ago was the starting point of my mental transformation. I realized and decided, I had to choose what I wanted to think about. Not only did I need to stop force feeding my mind a bunch of garbage, I needed to stop just letting my mind wander and accept any thought that popped in as worthy of thinking about.

We need to think about what we are thinking about–and what we allow to remain in our mind.

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In his book, The 4:8 Principle: The Secret to a Joy-Filled Life, Tommy Newberry, taught me about what he called, “The Laws of Emotional Strength.” The first Law is, “Whatever you dwell upon becomes increasingly prominent in your own mind.” His second Law, The Law of Exchange, states, “You can do away with a negative thought only when you replace it with a positive thought.”

And in the words of St Paul the Apostle and best selling author in his own right, “Finally, brethren, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is gracious, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.” †Philippians 4:8 Another translation reads, “Summing it all up, friends, I’d say you’ll do best by filling your minds and meditating on things true, noble, reputable, authentic, compelling, gracious – the best, not the worst; the beautiful, not the ugly; things to praise, not things to curse.”

If we are serious about living a joy filled life, it starts in our own mind. A joy filled life is not dependent on anything other than ourselves.

How awesome is that? My ducks don’t have to be in a row before I can experience joy. My children don’t have to behave, my husband doesn’t have to become someone he’s not, my job doesn’t have to change, my life doesn’t even have to change! The only think that has to change is me and I can control that (for the most part. I am not talking about serious mental conditions or physical imbalances).

I can choose what music I listen to–music that edifies God and brings my thoughts to higher things or music that just gives off a weird beat filled with angry, resentful, hopeless lyrics. Ginny mentioned recently how her little guy was soothed by the sound of Gregorian Chant. The post title, “A State of Mind.”

I can choose what information I take into my mind and heart–the news filled with sensationalized stories of death, destruction, fighting and controversy? No wonder we live in such a negative world. As Tommy states in his book, The 4:8 Principle: The Secret to a Joy-Filled Life, what if the weather man reported a 70% of sunshine instead of a 30% of rain.

Let me just get really real here, this is not easy. It is super simple…it is not easy. Some of us have years, if not an entire lifetime of these bad thinking habits ingrained in our brains…literally. Each thought we have produces a chemical reaction and a pathway through the brain to make it easier for that connection, that thought, to be made again. God is amazing in His design of us! Each time we have the same thought, that little pathway becomes clearer and deeper…really, so convenient and efficient…until we try to make a change. Our minds are literally stuck in the ruts of negative thinking. There are countless scientific studies that have proven this…this is a real deal. But the good news is…we can create new pathways through our brain by changing our thinking.

Here’s part of the trickiness of our brain though, I cannot decide not to think about something negative. Don’t think about an apple! (Not that apples are negative) What immediately popped into your mind? An apple! Instead of deciding what we don’t want to think about, we have to decide what we do want to think about. Think about a banana! What did you just think about? A banana!

I could not stop thinking about some sensationalized, horrific crime…could not. Instead, I had to replace it with something beautiful, something true, something good. One of the keys I found, was to consider something that produced a strong emotional response just like thinking about an unspeakable crime or sorrow…I needed to think about an unspeakable joy.

My go to thoughts as I was retraining my mind, and even now if I start slipping back into bad habits was to recall the birth of my children…yes, part of my retraining began after I had children. So if I started slipping down that slippery slope of allowing myself to be dragged down into the pit of wrong thinking…and it was easy to do; remember, I had all those highways deeply ingrained in my brain. I would force myself to consider, to ponder, to think about the events of the birth of one of my children.

This process seemed harder to me at first than I would have thought. I mean I really had to force myself to focus on the details that would steer my mind and pull my heart towards the good, true, beautiful and noble. I was literally clearing a path, a new thought channel, through my mind. And sometimes, I would literally have to see myself as a machete wielding, joy seeker, through a jungle of wrong thinking. Pretty funny now…not so much then. I remember thinking, “This almost feels like it would be easier to change my DNA than to change my thinking habits.” Little did I know, I really was making a chemical change in my body!

So where are you in all this? Standing on the sidelines thanking God you trained your mind right from the beginning? Or is there a big light bulb over your head right now…an “ahah!” moment?

September 22, 2014 by Jenny

Choosing Joy…The Laws of Emotional Strength

I did it! I survived the respiratory virus that caused pneumonia in two of my children, bronchitis-like junk in a couple more, ear infections in two of them, hives in two of them (on two of them?) and coughing, coughing, coughing from all of us…yes, for those keeping score, Anna finally succumbed. But, It did not ruin my twenty-second wedding anniversary either. I chose joy, even though I wasn’t feeling it part of the time. I practiced the Laws of Emotional Strength ala Tommy Newberry and The 4:8 Principle: The Secret to a Joy-Filled Life.

Today, let’s talk about what Tommy Newberry says in The 4:8 Principle: The Secret to a Joy-Filled Life are the Three Laws of Emotional Strength. Please, do not let me lose you here! This is not new age, crazy, mumbo jumbo. This is sound teaching about our thoughts determining our feelings. Too often, we let our feelings determine our thoughts–wrong, wrong, wrong.

Let’s talk about what Tommy calls, The Law of Attention.

I mention in my “Hi There” section, I used to use my mind as a garbage dump. I watched whatever, read whatever and listened to whatever. I took it all in, and then wondered why I was scared, depressed, angry and confused.

In The 4:8 Principle: The Secret to a Joy-Filled Life, Tommy Newberry defines the Law of Attention as “Whatever you dwell upon becomes increasingly prominent in your own mind…You will always feel what you dwell on.” My garbage dump of a mind was scared because I watched and read scary things. I started reading sensationalized crime magazines at a young age. I grew up in the boom of true crime television shows–murder mysteries, and “What Happened to…”

I was depressed because I read depressing things. I am speaking from my experience and there is a bit more to that statement and my past depression, but the bottom line is…I fed the depression. A steady diet of sad stories, that maybe normally do not cause the average person to think twice after they finished reading or hearing it…I would dwell on it. I would examine every sad aspect and emotion of the story. It was almost as if I became a part of the story if only an outside bystander. My heart broke with news of children suffering, women being harmed and the overall plight of a fallen world. I lived in a constant state of brokenness–brokenhearted–broken soul and broken mind.

Fear, worry, depression, anger and anxiety took the prominent place in my thought life which led to my words. I felt “bad” so I spoke words that supported that. My mouth was a steady stream of negativity and that fed my mind. Ay Yi Yi, what a vicious cycle! The Psalmist says, “Let the words of my mouth and the meditations of my heart be pleasing to you, LORD, my rock and my redeemer.” †Psalm 19:14 These words come from King David, a man after God’s own heart…who also committed adultery with Bathsheba and killed her husband to get him out of the way and cover his sin. And he’s asking God to let his thoughts and words be pleasing to Him. He didn’t dwell in the pit of wrong thinking. You’ll find in the Psalms his confessions and his sorrow, but not his dwelling in that place. King David could not be effective for the kingdom of God if his thoughts and words were constantly about his mistakes, his sorrows and his sins. He would have never found the joy of the Lord that causes him to exclaim with utter delight throughout the Psalms. He wrote the first Self Help book and it’s filled with his remedy for wrong thinking…filling his mind with the good things of the Lord and then meditating on them…day and night. †Psalm 119

It took me some time to realize, God was not keeping me in my fears…I was; not that I thought He was, I actually never considered God’s influence or help at this point. God was not putting sorrowful thoughts in my mind…I was force feeding them to myself; again, not that I thought He was, I never considered that He might care about my thought life. And God was not reminding me of my past sorrows and sins…no, that came from somewhere else; Now, I did think that was God.

I had to perform a major overhaul on my habits, yes, they were habits. I could no longer watch scary shows and expect a mind at rest. I could no longer read sorrowful stories and expect a joyful mind. I had to give up the desire to “feel” others pain in order to avoid my own…Did you just get that? I could no longer avoid my own feelings by substituting the pain, sorrow and fear of another. (Oh yeah, we will be talking more about that.)

What captures your mental attention, what do you dwell upon…and is it a bad habit you need to break?

September 4, 2014 by Jenny

Who I Want to be…A Joy Thinker

My last couple of posts have been a little on the depressing side eh? Have you been reading not only Paul’s Letter of Joy to the Philippians, but also Tommy Newberry’s book, The 4:8 Principle: The Secret to a Joy-Filled Life? I’ve mentioned before here or there, this is one of my favorite books. Providentially The 4:8 Principle: The Secret to a Joy-Filled Life came into my life when I needed some help retraining my mind. This book along with my Bible were key in my recovery from rotten, negative and even dangerous thinking habits. It helped me realize I needed to become a joy thinker.

My Bible challenged me to “Think what I was thinking about.” Not only that, it also made me woefully aware of all the junk I was taking in mentally. I enjoy Tommy Newberry’s analogy of our minds as a computer. You’ll find this on page 44-45 in the book.

“In many ways, your brain works like a computer. When you receive positive or negative input about yourself, your store it in your subconscious mind and later express those messages in your feeling and behaviors…Unless you are taught to reject the negative messages, you will tend to accept them as truth.” I like how he goes on to relate this truth with the scriptures;

“As water reflects a face, so a man’s heart reflects the man.”
†Proverbs 27:19

“Just as you can identify a tree by its fruit, so you can identify people by their actions.”
†Matthew 7:20

I believe these verses and Tommy’s descriptions are crucial ponderings especially for mothers–not only for ourselves, but our children as well. We cannot give what we do not have. We cannot teach and train our children to live joy filled lives if we are ourselves are joy-less. We cannot enjoy our children, if we do not have joy. I need to be a joy thinker not only for myself, but for my children as well.

Now this does not mean we need to be all Mary Poppins all the time. That does not describe me, my temperament, or my personality at all. I can be a more melancholic temperament and yet still maintain a joyful attitude. How?

My words will reflect my thoughts. If I speak in the negative or even just in the “blah” it reveals how I feel about myself, my life and my vocation. Not only will my children pick up those thinking habits, they may even think they are the cause of them.

“I have to do the dishes again,” said in a very Eeyore like manner. “I’m not a good cook…My clothes never fit…I’ll never learn to cook a good meatloaf…This always happens to me (us)…Why me?…I guess I’ll always/never…I am–I struggle with—I’ve always been…” Do you see? Can you just hear the joy void in those phrases? Blech!

When I got a hold of the truth found in my Bible and started reading The 4:8 Principle: The Secret to a Joy-Filled Life, one of the first things I quit saying was, “I’m a worrier.” Why would I label myself that way? How self defeating…How joy sucking!

I started thinking to myself, “If I can call myself a worrier, why can’t I call myself a truster just as easily?” (Yes, I know “truster” is not technically a word, but it worked and works for me.) Just that slight change in wording, made a small improvement in my thinking and eventually a big change in me.

I hope this post isn’t too disjointed. It’s late and I’m tired, but I wanted to get these thoughts down before I forgot them. Hopefully I can get back here tomorrow and work some of these thoughts out a little more fully. And, If I haven’t thanked you all yet, thanks for coming along side me as I purpose to read the Book of Philippians everyday for a month. I pray it will be a huge blessing in your life.