The Landscape Of Our Minds
Sally was dying, the weight of her body was slowly crushing her internal organs. Diagnosed as ‘morbidly obese’ she struggled daily with the simple tasks of walking, sitting, cooking, and cleaning which included needing to change her bedding daily due to her incontinence. Her thoughts and feelings about her weight were a toxic jumble of ideas, confusions, rationalizations, denials, and experiences which were malformed by severe trauma and abuse in her childhood and compounded by a therapist who ensured his treatment kept her dependent on him for over 11 years. Sally was dying and she wanted help.
What we bring into our minds, what we chose to think about, forms the mental furniture that fills our thought life and initiates a range of feelings, desires, and responses that direct our life. Like Sally these patterns of thought-feeling-action can become so habituated we can lose our control over them and we can be imprisoned by the very mind that should be helping us find freedom.
Sally’s doctor was deeply concerned and emphasized the importance of her losing weight every time he saw her which was increasingly frequent. His words just seemed to bounce off her, and Sally remained enslaved to her ideas about food, eating, and weight that ignored the crushing reality of her situation and disabled her from taking action. She wondered if there was something I could say, some advice I could give or spiritual discipline I might recommend that might help her. I told her to faithfully begin reading the Bible and to begin with the Gospels because I knew it was her mind that needed to be freed before her body could be helped and drawing God’s written word into her was the best prescription I could give at that point in her life.
However transformative reading Scripture can be, memorizing Scripture is even more powerful in our journey of transformation into Christlikeness (Romans 12:2). As Dallas Willard wisely wrote,
"The most obvious thing we can do is to draw certain key portions of Scripture into our minds and make them a part of the permanent fixtures of our thought. This is the primary discipline for the thought life. We need to know them like the back of our hand, and a good way to do that is to memorize them and then constantly turn them over in our minds as we go through the events and circumstances of our life (Joshua 1:8; Psalm 1). The desired effect will not be realized by focusing on isolated verses, but will certainly come as we ingest passages, such as Romans 5:1-8 or 8:1-15, 1 Corinthians 13, or Colossians 3:1-17." - Renovation of the Heart (pp. 113)
When we draw the structure and substance of God’s kingdom into our mind, we not only change the furniture we remodel the whole room.
"The Twenty-third Psalm…is an exquisite summary of life in the kingdom. The mind of the disciple should have it prominently displayed within, to always foster the joy and peace of the kingdom as well as to orient all of his or her actions within it…This is an essential part of any curriculum for Christlikeness. Positive engagement with these scriptures will bring kingdom order into our entire personality." - The Divine Conspiracy (pp 396)
As our thought-life begins to transform our feelings and desires begin to flow along kingdom paths, our actions become more infused and colored by the character of God and the abundance of His grace.
My conversations with Sally would always include interest in what she was reading and her many questions about Jesus Christ and his followers. Circumstances interrupted our interactions for many months but the next time I spoke with Sally she had lost 120 pounds, her incontinence had ceased, and her health was greatly improved as the advice from her doctor was now being heard and acted upon. She wondered to me why he hadn’t let her know how dangerous her weight was before this and I reminded her that he had but that she wasn’t ready to hear it without God’s help. She still had a long journey ahead, but her path is now more lighted by God (Psalm 119:105).
In various places in my home, you will find pictures of Yosemite. I have also taken some of the more inspiring ones and placed my favorite Scripture on them. They remind me of my first visit to Yosemite and standing at Tunnel Point and seeing God’s handiwork in El Captain, Half Dome, Bridalveil Falls, and the Cathedral Spires all laid out before me. My thoughts, feelings, and actions resonate with Yosemite’s majesty and God’s living artistry. When I memorize larger portions of Scripture it allows the grand vistas of God’s kingdom to resonate and harmonize the whole of my life. May you be refreshed and inspired by this teaching.