Walking Dusty this morning, I was thinking of a dear friend
of mine whose family has been torn apart by division. A family of many broken
hearts. My friend is a lovely praying believer and it just doesn’t seem fair.
But then I thought of God’s promise, that he makes
everything beautiful in its time. It may not happen in our time. She may never
know the reconciliation for which she longs, during this lifetime. But in the
course of eternity, she will be given the vision to see the beauty which God
has salvaged and created from times of the most incomprehensible pain.
I know she will see the beauty, in time, but I’m not sure if
everyone in the broken family will appreciate it, because of the choices they
make. Because I’ve still been thinking about the way we think, the things we
choose to think about, and how those thought patterns become engraved in the
physical routings of our brains so that we eventually do have the mind of
Christ, or the opposite. If we consistently resist making choices which lead
our thoughts upwards, and instead choose to dwell on the ugly, the evil, the
seamy side of life, then our minds become dark and closed. We are unable to
even perceive the possibility of things being as God has ordained, because we
have grooves in our minds which lead everywhere else but to God.
Another dear friend once painted a calligraphy for me which
is of a verse from Paul’s letter to the Philippians, in which he counsels his
readers to train their minds to think about things of beauty and life and light.
I’m beginning to appreciate the holistic cohesion of mind, body and spirit, and
see the importance of that advice even more clearly.
May your day be filled with encouraging thoughts and
positive feelings, so that little by little, yours becomes the mind of Christ.
It is an offer open to us all.
