I am a thinker. Perhaps you can identify. If you have ever taken the Myers-Briggs personality test, you know that one of the categories is thinker/feeler. I score high on thinking. Which means that this is what I am constantly doing. It is like my brain is in overdrive. Even when I sleep, my brain is working nonstop, processing the day’s thoughts through dreams I experience.
Being a thinker is both a blessing and a curse. It is a blessing in the sense that it enables me to write devotions like this one. It has been what God has used to write twenty plus years of sermons. It can be a great instrument for the kingdom of God. It can be a curse when I don’t have much to do, or when I am struggling to understand what God desires for my life. It can be a great hindrance when I am recovering from hurt and am trying to process my way through it. Sometimes, many times, the enemy who came to “steal, kill, and destroy,” uses my thinking against me, and he attempts to paint me in a “thinking” corner. Can you relate?
Probably most people can, even those who are feelers. We all have brains; therefore, we all think. The good news is that God knows this. Thinking is a huge part of what it means to be created in the image of God. Animals do not think like humans. Their thinking is more of a stimulus/response type of thinking. They are instinctual. On the other hand, human beings can reflect on their life experiences, and can reflect deeply. As Descartes once wrote, “I think, therefore I am.” Another has suggested the difference between humans and animals is that humans are “aware that we are aware.” Meaning that God intentionally made us to think. And for those of us who are in Christ, he wants our thoughts to reflect his presence, his goodness, his love, and his plan, his plan for our lives and his plan for the world. He wants our thinking to be produced by faith. When it is not, we all too often find ourselves painted in mental corners of our own doing.
This is precisely why the Scriptures give us many commands on how to think. In 1 Corinthians 10:5, Paul says: “We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.” In Romans 12:2 he writes: “Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.” One of my favorites is Philippians 4:8: “Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.”
What does all this mean, especially for thinkers such as me? It means that we must submit our thinking to Christ. We must allow his Spirit to be the guardian of what is processed in our minds. If we find that our thoughts are leading us away from Christ, that they are causing us to doubt his love and plan, that anxiety and despair are the result, we can be sure that this kind of thinking is not being filtered through Christ’s Spirit, that we are not allowing him to be the guardian of our minds. How do we know when our thoughts are in step with the Spirit? By measuring the product of our thinking with the fruits we know the Spirit produces. Galatians 5:22-23: “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.” When I preach on this passage, I always like to point out that fear, anxiety, doubt, frustration, and anger do not make up the list.
If you are a thinker like me, you know this is not easy. In fact, it can be hard, very hard. Thinkers are constantly thinking. Our thinking is both a strength and a weakness. Yet, we must always remember that our ability to think is a precious gift from God, and that he desires to use it for his glory. The apostle Paul goes so far as to say that we have the “mind of Christ” because his Spirit lives within us (1 Corinthians 2:16). If this is true, it means that God desires to “think” through us, that his thoughts be produced in our minds, our hearts, and our behaviors. And for a thinker, this is an amazing concept, an incredible thought to consider. What kind of thoughts are you thinking today?