Day 347 - New Thoughts

I've said it before and I'll say it again! I love sermons. I love lectures. I love to think. It's really weird because fifteen years ago I would have rolled my eyes to those sentences above. But now I find great joy in listening to sermons at work and then thinking through them on my usually silent drive to and from work. And let me tell you, I love music but as I've gotten older I have found that great conversations go on in my head with God and me during those 20 minutes to and from work.

I listened to Beth Moore as she spoke this year to Passion. Passion is a college seminar, if you will. It is tons of speakers and really cool Christian song artist all together down in Atlanta. I've never had the privilege to go and probably never will but they have put the speakers online for us old people and that makes me so very happy.

Beth, that's what I call her. I follow her on Twitter and she puts pictures of her camping trips up so I really feel like I can call her by her first name. She talked about renewing your mind. And then this morning I read about that in Ephesians 5. Something she said hit me and it's given me a new way of looking at things. It's nothing new and I should have known it (and I do know it) and I should be doing it (it's a discipline that doesn't happen by osmosis). Beth said that instead of taking something that has happened in your past or present and purposing yourself to not think about it any longer you need to change the way you think about it.

Have you ever done this before? I will purpose myself not to think about something that happened either going on now or in my past. It's usually something that someone has done to me or someone I love. I get so upset thinking about it and I'm ready to fight. Then I'll get convicted and confess my stupidness and resolve to not think about it any longer. Then I find myself telling someone about it three days later and getting all upset again. And so goes the pattern.

Beth (remember we're good friends) was saying that renewing your mind is not forgetting, it's replacing God's redemption over your life and your past. So it's almost like a filter. And when we filter our past and our circumstances in this way we are seeing them as God does - which is: everything happens because and for His glory (that's what John Piper talked about but that's another day).

Whoop! Whoop! Friends, what is more priceless than gold is a Truth from God's word put into real, everyday practice.

I highly recommend you watch/listen to the speakers at Passion. Ben Terry, one of my favorite bloggers ever has all of the videos up for your viewing pleasure. I think I might watch to them all about 100 times. Click HERE for the link.