Renew My Mind: A New Year’s GuideSample

I spent a summer in India when I was in college and I remember speaking with a Christian worker who said, “I use Paul’s list in Philippians 4 to help me focus on what I will and will not spend time thinking about. If it isn’t true, honorable, right, pure, lovely, admirable, excellent, or worthy of praise, I don’t spend very much time thinking about it.” I thought this man was absolutely bananas. It was completely beyond my comprehension to even attempt to direct my thoughts like he suggested. But now, after many years of working in the field of mental and spiritual health, I believe that this wise man had discovered a KEY component to staying encouraged during challenges.

Imagine if, this year, you developed a practice of directing your attention to the categories Paul lists in Philippians 4:8. What if you spent time focused on what is TRUE and actual instead of what is false or imagined? Or how would your attitude be lifted by a journalling session dedicated to noticing what is pure, lovely, and admirable? Or consider for a moment what a small group meeting might be like where members tell each other things that are worthy of praise in their lives.

Now, please hear me, I’m not suggesting you make the New Year one of Pollyannaish positivity. There is most definitely clear instruction in the scriptures to both lament and to grieve. We will not develop as emotionally mature Christians if we live in denial. But the practice of focused attention that Paul suggests here is a Biblical practice that we often fail to utilize because, for so many of us, it is more natural to slide into a spin of fear and doom. Paul’s pastoral encouragement makes him an early forerunner of cognitive therapy. What he suggests is affirmed by modern-day research; the way we think impacts how we feel overall!

What harm could there be in having an increased sense of perspective and hope? Try applying Paul’s formula to some focused thinking time and see what a big difference it can make in your overall encouragement and steadiness.