Thoughts

Have you ever been overwhelmed by the thoughts running through your head? Sometimes, it is the pile of work waiting for you on your desk that haunts you as you try to relax at home. Other times it is an insecurity built in the past and reaffirmed in the present that overwhelms. Sometimes, it is an obsession or an addiction that fills our head and locks-up the ability to move forward.

Jesus said, "Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also." (Matthew 6:21) The ancients were not as clear about the separation of heart, mind, emotions and the like as we are. One could easily see this as saying, "What is important to you, on that your mind will dwell."

How do we change the thoughts running through our heads, lay down those insecurities, and better control the obsessions and addictions of our lives? This is not as easy, but obviously important if we want to have a better pattern tomorrow than we did today.

I want to point to a couple of possibilities that I find useful, although, honestly, I do not turn to them as often as I should. First is prayer. Pray for a new heart, a new mind, and a new thought. To quote the camp song, "Turn your eyes upon Jesus . . . and the things of earth will grow strangely dim." When we are speaking oft with the Lord, we tend to not be thinking about our shortcomings and our obsessions.

Second, trying focusing yourself on this moment. What are you seeing, hearing, feeling, and doing at this very moment? For example, I see the computer screen, I hear my son playing in the next room, I feel the warmth of the computer on my wrist, and I am writing a blog. This pulls me out of my head and into the present of this moment.

As anyone who reads these words regularly can tell, I am working on changing my thoughts and focusing on a better treasure.