FOOTPRINTS IN THE MIND

“As a single footstep will not make a path on the earth, so a single thought will not make a pathway in the mind. To make a deep physical path, we walk again and again. To make a deep mental path, we must think over and over the kind of thoughts we wish to dominate our lives.” Read that quote again, just try it and then come back. This quote comes from a book by Wilfred A. Peterson. I stumbled across it years ago and it has indeed made a deep impression in my mind because I keep returning to it. Although there is no evidence that Peterson was a believer, the Bible does make it very clear that we are to discipline our minds to think on worthy things because there are very real consequences if we don’t. Take a ride with me on this train of thought for a bit.

The mind is like a network of roads. You can follow a train of thought to logic through a problem, travel a forgotten pathway to old memories, or trailblaze a new idea. Any path that you begin has the potential to be made easy. Imagine that your new thought pathways are covered by grass and other foliage. If you walk through it one time, the grass will pop back up and in a short time that path disappears. Likewise, if you think about something just once, you are likely to forget it. But if you continue to tread that same path, the grass will stop growing and it will become a solid path that is easy to take.

If we neglect maintaining the trails that explore God’s Word and prayer, we are likely to spend our time either staying at home in our comfortable short paths of mindless entertainment and troubles of this world, or we might be maintaining and creating darker, more treacherous paths.

What do comfortable paths in our minds look like? First, note that spiritual disciplines are hard to make a habit. There are so many! There’s reading, studying, meditating on, listening to, praying, and memorizing the Bible. There’s prayer which includes praise, confession, thanksgiving, and requests. Then there’s fellowship with other believers, attending church, serving in the church, and reaching out to our community and evangelizing. It can be daunting to start the hard work of being consistent with a quiet time. But maybe it’s just hard because we’re forging a new trail. We’ve been traveling nice easy trails filled with entertainment for ourselves on our phones and being absorbed by the cares of this life and now the pathways of these spiritual disciplines are like hacking through a dense jungle or forest because we’ve neglected them. We try a little bit, but then turn back to the simple paths, missing out on the adventure. But by the help of the Holy Spirit as our machete, it is possible to maintain trails even through jungles.

But what about treacherous paths? Sinful paths of bitterness, discontent, jealousy, envy, anxiousness, judgement, and guilt, aren’t always comfortable, but they can become as easy as walking on a paved road. You might experience a hurt from someone and walk one day down a path of anger, bitterness, or resentment. If you never travel it again, over time, the pain along with the path to that pain will fade. But if you walk it again, and again, turning over in your mind the hurt and pain, you will eventually dig a deep trench. When you’re inside a trench, you can’t accurately see what’s going on around you. These deep trenches make it seem like we’re in a war and can warp our reality of the events and people involved and cause us to burn bridges and self-destruct relationships. We can end up attributing false actions and character traits to people because all we can see are the walls of the trench that block us from being able to forgive or show God’s grace, mercy, and compassion on others. The sad part is, we’re not supposed to be at war with believers because we’re on the same side and we’re supposed to be ambassadors to unbelievers. We are never meant to dig trenches against others in our mind.

There is another path that is easy to slip into. The dark alleyways of guilt. Conviction of sin is wonderful because sin separates us from God, but the Holy Spirit convicts us to repent so we can be right with God once more. But sometimes these pathways of repentance have a dark alleyway nearby. If we walk down the spiral shame staircase into the alley, we are engulfed by our guilt of our sin and can’t see the light of God’s forgiveness. In that alley is self-pity, pride, selfishness, and wallowing. In it we think too much of ourselves and not enough of God’s goodness. We forget our justified position in Christ and the work He accomplished on the cross. It is a dark place indeed.

What must we do to avoid these pitfalls of the easy trails, the trenches, and the dark alleys? To guard against those trails, by the help and guidance of the Holy Spirit, we are to trailblaze better paths by listening to what Paul says in Philippians 4:4-9. “Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, rejoice. Let your reasonableness be known to everyone. The Lord is at hand; do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things. What you have learned and received and heard and seen in me—practice these things, and the God of peace will be with you.” As you walk through the wonderful landscapes of this life exploring the depths of who God is, fix your eyes on Jesus, read His word, pray, and think on His truth. “You keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on you, because he trusts in you.” -Isaiah 26:3

RESOURCE: Fix My Eyes by King’s Kaleidoscope https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o6lLYpIUOmY

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