Did you think I was going to say eat? Well, in the same way that the health of our bodies is impacted by the health of our food, the health of our mind is impacted by the health of our thoughts. In other words, unhealthy thoughts lead to poor mental health, while healthy thoughts lead to good mental health the same way that healthy food leads to healthy bodies and unhealthy food leads to unhealthy bodies.
In a recent study, researchers found that the average person has roughly 6,000 thoughts per day. That’s a lot of thoughts! The mind drives the body. It is the source of our actions and emotions, what we say and what we do. An unhealthy thought life, therefore, will lead to an unhealthy life overall as our feelings, actions, and words will be negatively impacted. Of course, the good news is that we can have a healthy thought life which will positively impact our feelings, actions, and words. So if our thoughts inform our feelings, actions, and words, what informs our thoughts? At the root of our thoughts is our beliefs, our basic assumptions about God, ourselves, and our world.
Let’s look at the account of the Israelite’s first attempt at entering the Promised Land in Numbers 13. Though 12 spies go in only 2 come back with a good report saying, “We should go up and take the land, for we can certainly do it.” The other 10? They spread a “bad report” saying, “The land devours those living in it. All the people we saw were of great size…we seemed like grasshoppers in our own eyes, and we looked the same to them.”
12 people saw the same thing but came to 2 different conclusions, “we can” and “we cannot.” What made the difference? Their belief.
In another story, we find Jeremiah lamenting after the fall of Jerusalem. In Lamentations 3 Jeremiah looks at the circumstances he finds himself in and accuses of God of everything from being “a lion who dragged me from the path, mangled me, and left me for dead” to using Jeremiah as a “target for his arrows.” Has life’s circumstances ever made you feel like God is using you for target practice? You’re not alone, Jeremiah a prophet of God felt the same way.
However, it all changes beginning in verse 21 when Jeremiah “calls to mind and therefore [has] hope” that the Lord’s compassion never fails, that it’s new every morning, that the Lord’s faithfulness is great. He says to himself, “The Lord is my portion, I will wait for him.”
What are you saying to yourself? Are you a grasshopper in your own eyes? As the challenges of life hit you, do you see yourself as God’s punching bag?
We all have to opportunity to enter the Promised Land. We all have access to the peace that is here when it doesn’t make sense. It starts with acknowledging the wrong beliefs we have about God, ourselves, and our world, and replacing those with basic assumptions and beliefs that are grounded in the truth. In whatever you’re facing, what will you call to mind and say to yourself today in order to have hope?