Have you heard someone say, I lost my train of thought? They mean that they forgot where they were going with what they started saying. I think a lot of people need desperately to lose their train of thought. Some totally need to derail the train before it derails them. Do you know what I mean? Do you know somebody like that? Or maybe that somebody is you?
There are thoughts that don’t just pass through our minds but rather seem to take possession of our thought life. For example, you hear about fluctuations in the economy and increasing unemployment, and you begin to think about what would happen if you got laid off. Then, all the reasons why you could be next go marching through your mind. Now you have gone from news to possibility to worry. You begin to have a knot of uneasy expectation in your stomach in the mornings before you even get to work. As your fear increases, you have trouble concentrating and your work suffers in consequence. When you receive a warning, anxiety and anger set up post and you really can’t work. And so it’s not long before your boss calls you to her office and tells you that you were on the bottom of the list, but your performance dropped so much in the last weeks that they must let you go. Job 3:25 says, For the thing I greatly feared has come upon me, And what I dreaded has happened to me. Your thoughts derailed you.
For the thing I greatly feared has come upon me. And what I dreaded has happened to me. (Job 3:25)
Maybe you are watching your marriage relationship fall apart and haven’t understood how much your thoughts may be causing it. Say you are feeling swamped with keeping house, cooking and the kids and you begin to think about your husband, that he doesn’t understand you or all you’re going through. One thought leads to another. and you virtually expect him just to know what you are thinking and feeling- which is pretty much an impossibility for anyone especially for a man to read a woman. Resentment builds and unfulfilled expectations confirm in your thinking that he is not going to change. From there it’s a downward spiral of discouragement and depression.
By tendency, where your mind goes, so do you. When the railroad company decided it wanted to set up transportation from New York to San Francisco, do you think they hired a bunch of men, gave them a load of tracks, and told them to start laying them out as they thought best? Of course not! They might have ended up in El Paso instead. No doubt they had an expert trace out the path needed and the obstacles to overcome. So, how about consciously setting the tracks of your thought life in the right direction.
The best way to a positive and productive life is basing it on a good relationship with God and his word. If you are ever conscious that God is with you and has the best plan possible for your life, you can live in confidence- not because everything is always as you like, but because you trust God to work all things together for your good. King David had a lot of ups and downs in his life, but through it all, God was always close to him, gave him amazing favor and blessed that which he put his hands to do. He said, I have set the Lord always before me; Because He is at my right hand I shall not be moved (Psalm 16:8). So, look to God first in every situation, give him your burdens, and obey him to the letter, Remember, He knows best.
Choose God’s thoughts given us in his word to be your thoughts and the law of the land. Many times we know what the Bible says and say we believe it, but we don’t really live by it. But yet, we expect God to back us as if we did. It dosen’t work like that. James 1:22 says, But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves.
You lay the tracks for where you want to go and where you want to take the loved ones that are riding with you, so choose well.
We must choose faith over fear. We must choose hope over despair. We must choose love over hate and unforgiveness. You must choose. You lay the tracks for where you want to go and where you want to take the loved ones that are riding with you, so choose well. God’s word is the best guarantee we can have.
“For My thoughts are not your thoughts, Nor are your ways My ways,” says the Lord. “For as the heavens are higher than the earth, So are My ways higher than your ways, And My thoughts than your thoughts. “For as the rain comes down, and the snow from heaven, And do not return there, But water the earth, And make it bring forth and bud, That it may give seed to the sower And bread to the eater, So shall My word be that goes forth from My mouth; It shall not return to Me void, But it shall accomplish what I please, And it shall prosper in the thing for which I sent it. So, start putting the train of your thoughts on God’s thoughts today.
Excellent word, Martha!
Thank you, Cathy