Thinking – indycrowe

Live in the Land of “And Yet”: Why Faith Must Speak into Our Feelings

“Faith is a footbridge that you don’t know will hold you up over the chasm until you’re forced to walk out not it.” Nicolas Wolterstorff

What do you do when things don’t go the way you wanted, and now you’re in a mental, emotional, and spiritual funk? How do you escape the frustration, discouragement, or disappointment that feel so powerful in both the small annoyances and larger trials of the day? How do you get out of your own head or not be ruled by your feelings so you can instead seek, trust, and walk with God in the troubles of the day?

Earlier today, I felt frustrated and disappointed, and then I felt frustrated and discouraged because I couldn’t shake those feelings. (I’ll share more of the details later or below in this post.) What God nudged me toward was I needed to choose trusting and resting in Him rather than remain restless and frustrated over my circumstances. There were two parts in this movement toward experiencing God’s peace. I needed to shift my attention away from undesirable circumstances and onto the glorious God, and I needed to choose to trust in the objective truths of who God is rather than be ruled by the subjective feelings in my circumstances.

Much of the Christian life is learning to live in the tension of not feeling like trusting or praising God but still choosing to trust and praise God. You might feel frustrated, disappointed, and discontent, and yet part of how we respond to these normal experiences is by choosing to still trust that God is good, present, and at work for my good even in this situation.

Have You Considered? (10 Things to Think About)

Every day, we fill our minds with lots of thoughts, ideas, daydreams, concerns, worries, and considerations. What we think about it isn’t neutral. Our thoughts direct our desires, hopes, fears, passions, emotions, and actions. The old adage “you are what you eat” reminds us what we put in our bodies affects our bodies. But it’s also true “you are what you think” because what we put in our minds affects our mind, heart, and behavior.

Resources on Wisdom and Discernment

“Much in cultural engagement hangs on wisdom and virtue rather than a list of rules or universal plan that we might extract from the Bible.” Joshua D. Chatraw & Karen Swallow Prior, Cultural Engagement

“Of all its benefits, one of the drawbacks of the digital age is how easily we mistake information for knowledge….The goal of discernment is not to simply avoid evil in this life, it is to learn what is good so that we might embrace and enjoy it.” Hannah Anderson, All That’s Good

We have more information than ever, and yet it seems we’re less discerning than ever. Maybe those two go hand-in-hand, as the amount of information and the mediums we receive that information from (primarily online and through social-media) don’t prioritize wisdom.

In an age of fake news, alternative opinions, echo chambers, tribalism, information overload, cancel culture, and hot takes, taking the time to diligently study issues, consider various views, compare it with biblical teaching, and reflect on the nuances and complexities of those issues before arriving at an opinion–and sharing it–seems to rarely happen. It’s much easier to simply read one article that says what I like (or even just read the headline) and quickly share it with everyone. It feels good. But does it cultivate discernment and diligence? Does it over-simply issues or honestly reflect nuance? Wisdom is in short supply, but let’s do what we can to try and reclaim it.

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Renew Your Mind with Gospel-Centered Reflection

“If the gospel is not the ABC’s of the Christian life but the A to Z, we can expect that the gospel is for all of life, not just the moment of conversion. The gospel’s saving work is deep work. It is deep tissue massage, spiritual reparative therapy, and radical reconstructive surgery.” Jared Wilson in Gospel Deeps

My recent posts have highlighted the importance of renewing our mind. Our thinking is prone to get off track, believe lies, filter things through our faulty grid, and be swayed by competing voices. Unless we are active in the fight by taking every thought captive and renewing our mind with biblical truth, we’re doomed. Of all the things we then talk to ourself about or set our minds on, none top the gospel in importance. The gospel sets us straight about who God is, who we are now in Christ, and how we can and should live in light of these realities.

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Renew Your Mind in Community

In my last post, I shared some thoughts on how to renew our minds so we fight error with truth. While any of it could be done in some form of Christian community (small group, bible study, discipleship relationships, etc.), it might have felt more individualistic. The ninth point in that post highlighted just how important a community, or a group of Christians living life together, is for thinking biblically together.

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10 Ways to Renew Your Mind

“Have you realized that most of your unhappiness in life is due to the fact that you are listening to yourself instead of talking to yourself?” Martyn Lloyd Jones

“You keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on you, because he trusts in you.Trust in the Lord forever, for the Lord God is an everlasting rock.” (Isaiah 26:3-4)

Growing in Christ includes putting off sinful behaviors and putting on Christ-like ones, but it begins with battling at the levels of the heart (desires) and mind (thinking). The two are inseparable (Matt. 15:18-19). The heart leads our head down certain ways of thinking, and our wrong thinking reinforces wrong desires.

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