Control Your Thinking

     Today, I will tell you the last falling story (as long as I don’t fall today). This time I did not fall while walking, but I fell while riding my bike. It has been my greatest injury in my life. I was in kindergarten and it was a little after five o’clock. I had learned how to ride a big boy’s bike, so I thought! I was doing pretty well riding it down the sidewalk and I was riding toward my home. Then I saw my dad coming home. Thoughts began swirling through my head. All of a sudden, I could not remember how to stop the bike. Not being able to stop, I believed my father would get to the drive way at the same time I would and he would run over me. What stupid thinking! I did not stop to try and remember how to stop, nor did I think that my father would know how to stop his car! All I knew was I had to beat him to the driveway. I started going as fast as I could and one driveway from home, I lost control of the bike and crashed on the cement. My head and my chin took the full blow of the impact. I split open my chin. My father yelled for my mother and out she came with a towel. They scooped me up, jumped into the car, and took off for our family doctor that was four blocks away. Remember, this was 45 years ago, in a small town, with one family doctor. He would stay late for you or you could call him and he would meet you at his office any time of day or night. There was no need for immediate care clinics or emergency rooms. We went straight to his building, into his office, and to an exam table. Out came the needle and thread to start sewing up my chin, but I was not going to have it. They could not hold me still, though three people were trying! Finally, out of frustration, the doctor decided to put me out, so he gave me a shot and within seconds I was asleep. He completed his sewing project and started the process of waking me up. When I did wake up, I could not see! I still remember being blind and how that felt. At this point, it was off to the hospital. At the hospital, I was admitted and I went through many tests. I did get my sight back but I could not eat or hold anything down for over a week. My stay ended up being two weeks. They had told my parents that I had a brain hemorrhage and there was nothing they could do, and that I would most likely die. I remember my mother sitting at my bedside crying. It was very confusing for me but when I asked her, she would always had some answer. Every day, I took the same tests. Wires rolled up all over my head, laying in a room by myself, opening and closing my eyes on demand from a voice over a speaker, while someone behind the glass figured out what my brain was doing. In case you are going to say, “Oh that is what is wrong with her”, you are not alone. I have heard that all my life! After 10 days, I started doing better and they changed the diagnosis to a severe brain concussion and declared I would live. For three years, I had to go back for scheduled sessions with my head wires, but in the end, I was pronounced normal and completely healed (Dwayne: Normal? I'd like to speak to that doc!).
     A lot happened because of illogical thoughts. Two weeks in the hospital, great expense to my parents, and an emotional roller coaster ride of thinking you were going to lose your child! What a trip. As I have gotten older, my illogical thoughts have not eluded me. They still show up in my head and try their best to make me believe their ridiculous lies and falsehoods. Sometimes, I have bit and caused a situation to get out of control and many times I have had long term consequences from the actions those thoughts started. Satan’s number one tactic of attack comes in the form of thoughts. Scripture calls them the arrows of Satan. He goes around shooting destructive thoughts in our head. We all get them. The question is what we do when we get those thoughts. God gives us clear directions. We need to take every thought captive. We need to search that thought and match it up to God’s Word and God’s character. If we determine it is not from God, then we are to disregard it. We need to put it down the garbage disposal of our mind!
     Do you control your thoughts? Do you frisk every thought down and determine if it is from God or Satan? Or do you just accept every thought as equal? Do you react and let illogical thoughts control you? Do you know where your switch is to your mind’s garbage disposal?

We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.

 2Corinthians 10:5 (NIV)

We use our God-tools for smashing warped philosophies, tearing down barriers erected against the truth of God, fitting every loose thought and emotion and impulse into the structure of life shaped by Christ. Our tools are ready at hand for clearing the ground of every obstruction and building lives of obedience into maturity.

 2Corinthians 10:5-6