What's in....your mind?

(from clipart-library.com)

“Your mind is the command center of your life. For your mind to guide you into a good future, it needs to be free from painful memories you’ve been holding on to. The battle for your happiness is inside of you, specifically in your mind. Other people matter and influence your life. Ultimately, though, your thinking more than any other factor determines your happiness.” -Eric Thurman

This quote comes from a book on retirement that Dave and I are currently discussing, Thrive in Retirement, Simple Secrets for Being Happy for the Rest of Your Life. (Click here to go to Amazon to check out the book yourself.)

My mind tends to want to wrestle everything that doesn’t line up completely with the Word of God. Sometimes I try to make it line up, other times, I pray about it and God shows me what He was saying through the person making the statement; specifically, what He was saying to me.

This quote though, I don’t really wrestle with it at all; I’m pondering it. I like it. It just makes sense.

(from owlcation.com)

I was chatting with a woman about her retirement years. She wasn’t encouraging at all. She made it sound like each day was merely a matter of existing; waking up to breathe for another day. I almost wanted to ask, “So, you’re just waiting for the day you don’t live through?”

I don’t want to live out our retirement like that.

I suppose, just like every day of life before retirement, we have to choose whether or not to be happy as the day unfolds. But this book gives us food for thought as to how to get the most out of our latter years. It could all be applied to our younger years, as well. I think he needs a different title.

On another page he wrote, “It is my ambition to be happy for all the years I have left, and I want to infect you with the same enthusiasm. A thriving life of delight and meaning isn’t going to come as a streak of good luck. It will happen as the result of deliberate choices and actions.”

Again. Makes perfect sense to me!

The Bible tells us that what we think is what we’re going to be. Philippians 4:8 tells us to think on the good things. For my real fans, you know that’s part of my favorite chunk of scripture. Another portion of scripture tells us that “as a man thinks, so is he”. (Proverbs 23:7) Even secular books tell us this same profitable message.
Song: Think on the Good Things - The Gaither Trio

What we allow to roll around in our heads is going to shape our lives, whether we’re near retirement or just starting out in life.

(from me.me.com)

There’s a popular credit card commercial that asks, “What’s in your wallet?” Can't you hear him ask just by seeing his face? 

I ask, “What’s in your mind?”

You don’t have to answer out loud.

Many of us would answer that our minds are filled with our mounting problems. Or that we constantly think of how someone wronged us, or that we dwell on how unfair life seems to be.

Can many of us honestly say that our thoughts are filled with good things – all the time? That we dwell on our blessings more than our problems?

God tells us to “fret not” and to “fear not”. (Someone told me that the Bible says to “fear not” 365 times! Once for each day of the year.) God’s Word tells us to be anxious for nothing, that means not to worry about anything. It’s written there to be careful (full of care, worry) for nothing, because He does the caring for us. (1 Peter 5:7)

Maybe our enemy doesn’t have to tempt us with the “big sins” like murder or the like. Maybe all he has to do is get us worrying, about anything, actually.

(from Facebook.com)

I read a meme on social media, and then shared it myself. It read: “The serpent did not tempt Adam and Eve to steal, to kill, to commit adultery; he simply tempted them to question God’s Word.”

Ponder THAT!


Think on the Good Things Gaither Trio