A Wise Woman Guards her Mind

My posts have been few and far between this summer, and I thought it would be fun to do a short “Wise Woman” study because wisdom benefits all of us and is worthy pursuit. “Above all, get wisdom.”

First up, our minds.

Women are emotional, and emotions can tend to rule us, but a wise woman watches over her thought life “so that her feelings don’t get the upper hand and so that her desires are formed around biblical principles.” (adapted from Lydia Brownback’s fabulous book A Woman’s Wisdom: How the Book of Proverbs Speaks to Everything. A must-read, by the way!)

Have you ever felt that you were on the crazy cycle emotionally? Yup. Me, too. Most likely, it’s because we’re not sorting our thoughts out biblically, but are just believing whatever our mind can conjure up. We need to stop listening to our rouge thoughts and start listening to God’s word.

Proverbs points out that righteous living and careful thinking walk hand in hand. And peaceful living is dependent on a mind that is “stayed” or fixed on Christ. That means when trouble is all around, you look to Christ knowing that He has allowed this and is Lord over even trouble. Dwelling on the uncertainty of trouble can make you a little crazy or give you an ulcer. 🙂

Proverbs 21:19b tells us that “the upright gives thought to his ways,” and “the prudent gives thoughts to his steps,” and “whoever trusts his own mind is a fool, but he who walks in wisdom will be delivered.”

Whenever our emotions are wild and we sin because of it, James tells us we are double minded (a two-track mind). A two track mind has “split loyalties”: it’s trying to please God and self which can never work. James tells us that we’re like this because our carnal desires are ruling us instead of Christ’s word dwelling richly in us.

We are double minded:

• When we trust our emotions or our own wisdom
• When we say we’re following Christ but doing whatever we want
• When our desires lead us and we follow them outside of the bounds of scripture, (i.e. sin with our mind, heart or body)
• When we are bent on warring with others to get what we desire
• When we dwell on our desires and bemoan the fact that life is not what we’d hoped, complaining against the providence of God

Our minds are to be servants of God. Thought-wise, if it’s anti-biblical, unloving or unyielded and proud it has to go.

Some questions to consider about our thought life:

• Are my thoughts biblical or worldly?
• Am I guarding my heart realizing it affects my thought life?
  

  “The neglected heart will soon be a heart overrun with worldly thoughts; the neglected life will soon become a moral chaos.” Tozer

• Do my thoughts about God line up with what He tells me in His word?
  

  “What comes into our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us.” ~ Tozer

• Are they loving toward God and others? Are my thoughts slanderous and accusatory, like Satan?
  

  Thoughts lead on to purposes; purposes go forth in action; actions form habits; habits decide character; and character fixes our destiny.~Tryon Edwards

• Would Christ be properly portrayed if my thoughts were emblazoned on a big screen for the world to read?
• Would my thoughts pass muster in the “humble submission under the mighty hand of God” test?
• Are ungodly thoughts being addressed, confronted and removed by me in an attempt to “renew my mind” and “bring every thought captive?”

You must keep your memory clean and pure, as it were a wedlock chamber, from all strange thoughts, fancies and imaginations, and it must be trimmed and adorned with holy meditations and virtues of Christ’s holy crucified life and passion: That God may continually and ever rest therein. ~Robert Leighton

• Do my thoughts tend toward promoting peace or towards causing division, creating schisms and encouraging feuding?
• Are they “true, honest, just, pure, lovely, of good report, virtuous, praiseworthy?”

Holiness begins in our minds and works out to our actions. That being true, what we allow to enter our minds is critically important. The television programs we watch, the movies we may attend, the books and magazines we read, the music we listen to, and the conversations we have all affect our minds. We need to evaluate the effects of these avenues honestly, using Philippians 4:8 as a standard. Are the thought stimulated by these various avenues true? Are they pure? Lovely? Admirable, excellent, or praiseworthy? ~ Jerry Bridges

• Do I have obsess over problems, talking about them to anyone who’ll listen, repeating perceived wrongs to myself over and over again?

“We can be sure that underlying obsessive thinking is an out of control desire to master something or someone, which springs from doubts about God’s mastery of the situation or even doubts about God himself.” -Lydia Brownback  

Sometimes it’s helpful to re-assess our thoughts, especially if we are struggling with discouragement or discontentment or we are not “fulfilled” in our relationship with Christ.

Over-emphasis on self and self-worth, a feeling that maybe we’re missing out on something, that we’ve been shortchanged somehow, or that people misunderstand us, or don’t respect us or overlook us or blah, blah, blah…..whatever our mind can invent, Satan will use to gain a foothold in our lives. Satan’s agenda brings bondage, suffering and death, all the while promising freedom, happiness and life worth living.

Being in God’s word often and studying it deeply shows you the mind of Christ. Memorizing God’s word helps you renew your mind and meditating on God’s words helps you to “let this mind be in you that was also in Christ Jesus.”

Some days it comes easy. Other days it’s all out war, isn’t it? Don’t give up! It’s worth it in the end when your mind is stayed and peaceful and the discipline you’ve endured yields the peaceable fruit of righteousness.