Do you think about your thoughts? Not in some meta or psychological way, but do you ever consider the kinds of things you allow your mind to dwell on? According to Scripture, thinking about your thinking is not only a fruitful discipline but a necessary one. The Bible repeatedly draws our attention to our habits of attention.
Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect. (Romans 12:2)
Think over what I say, for the Lord will give you understanding in everything. (2 Timothy 2:7)
[Jesus] turned and said to Peter, “Get behind me, Satan! You are a hindrance to me. For you are not setting your mind on the things of God, but on the things of man.” (Matthew 16:23)
We could go on. And time would fail us to list all the times Scripture calls us to “remember” (the word occurs in the ESV well over two hundred times), or to “consider” (one mantra of the book of Hebrews), or to “understand” (a favorite imperative of Proverbs).
God considers the patterns of our thought crucial to the pursuit of happiness and holiness. So, I ask again, How often do you think about the kinds of things you think about?
Your Mental Media Feed
Imagine for a moment your mind as a social media feed. (It’s not! This is just a metaphor.) Every day, you scroll through thousands of thoughts, everything from what to eat for breakfast to a lovely flower in the yard to the bill you need to pay to a Jane Austen novel to the glorious mystery of the Trinity. Clearly, the range of topics and their relative worth varies greatly.
Just like a digital feed on YouTube or Instagram, whenever you click on one of these thoughts and dwell there, your feed changes. With each selection, the algorithm of your mind adjusts slightly. Tomorrow, you will have more thoughts like the ones you chose and approved of today.
To change the metaphor, you write “on the tablet of your heart” through your patterns of attention (Proverbs 3:3, 7:3). The more you return to a line of thought, the deeper the inscription goes. Over time, the scribbles on your mind become well-worn carvings. They harden into habits.
In his book The Logic of the Body, Matthew LaPine describes how the pathways of our thoughts and passions can be shaped and retain that shape over time. The technical term for this is plasticity, “the capacity to take a shape (malleability) and hold that shape (durability). It is the capacity that enables habit formation” (38). Over months and years, weightlifting will shape and strengthen your muscles. In the same way, our minds, wills, and appetites have “the ability to be molded into semi-permanent shapes” through our habits (40). Just like your body and your social media feed, your thought patterns are plastic.
In short, our thoughts shape our thinking. What we think about (present tense) has a significant influence on what we will think about (future tense). And our thinking shapes who we are. What we attend to cannot be severed from what we are becoming (2 Corinthians 3:18).
Curate Your Thoughts
Jesus illustrates this principle in Matthew 6. He warns us not to fall into the mental rut of anxiety, fretful about our daily needs. However, he does not expect us to banish worry by mere willpower. He beckons our attention to the birds. He calls us to linger over the lilies. He invites us into a new pattern of thinking centered on God’s fatherly and kingly care. LaPine explains,
The inverse of anxiety in Matthew 6 is seeking the kingdom (6:33). In other words, we are to submit ourselves to the care and governance of our Father’s rule. What brings us comfort is the surety of his ruling care; he is the gardener of his good creation and of us. (345)
In other words, Jesus says, “Don’t think in that way by thinking this way.” Make anxiety increasingly unthinkable by increasingly thinking about the kingdom. Jesus cares about the long-term mental and emotional fruit of what we give our attention to.
Just like we curate a social media feed, clicking “Not Interested” or “More Like This” or “Subscribe,” we must curate our thoughts so that the feed of our mind becomes more and more conformed to the mind of Christ (Philippians 2:5). Over time, we can make godly patterns of thinking easier and ungodly ones more difficult.
And to do that, we learn to interrogate our thoughts.
True, Good, Beautiful?
Whatever is good, true, and beautiful, fill your mind-feed with these things by curating your thoughts. So we might paraphrase Paul’s happy exhortation in Philippians 4:8. Implicit in this invitation into fruitful thinking is the call to consider whether the things that occupy our thoughts are worthy of being there. Paul gives us criteria to assess our thinking. And this is not the only place the Bible gives us standards for our mental patterns.
There’s no better time than the start of a new year to begin, by the Spirit, to renew your mind. As you strive to curate your mind-feed, here are a handful of questions to ask.
1. Does this thought align with truth?
Paul starts his lovely litany of things we should pay attention to with “whatever is true” (Philippians 4:8). We are not left, like Pilate, scratching our heads about what that means. Jesus says, “I am . . . the truth” (John 14:6), implying that whatever is true accords with who God is as he has revealed himself in Jesus and in Scripture and, to a lesser extent, in the story he’s telling in this world.
Perhaps the most prevalent falsehood we coddle is the one that sees me at the center of all things. That lie is as old as the garden. No one should “think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think with sober judgment” (Romans 12:3). Any rhythm of thought that fuels our natural pride and self-centeredness should receive an immediate “Dislike.” True patterns of thinking are not the pool of Narcissus, riveting our attention on our own reflection. Instead, they lead out of the prison of self.
So, does this thought help me think rightly about myself? Do my habits of mind tend to focus on me? Or do they help me to “count others more significant” (Philippians 2:3)? Does this thought fit God’s character, his word, his world, and his way? Does it go with the grain of reality? Is it true?
2. Does this thought dwell on good?
Sometimes the best way to establish good patterns is to root out bad ones. Thus, Paul orients all our thinking when he says, “Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth” — namely, “sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness” (Colossians 3:2, 5). We want our thoughts to go habitually toward the One who is good, leading us away from the fleeting pleasures of sin that the world peddles in.
For many of us, good thinking gets stymied, not by dwelling on explicit evil, but by shallow distraction. Eating a Twinkie every once in a while won’t kill you, but don’t make a diet out of them. “Brothers, do not be children in your thinking. Be infants in evil, but in your thinking be mature” (1 Corinthians 14:20). Trivial, banal, frivolous thinking makes a rootless man. Instead, let the gravitas of good hold your attention. Think about weighty matters to become mentally strong.
Ask yourself, is this thought worthwhile? Does it have any bearing on the things that really matter? Does my time online distract me with tinsel-toy and cotton-candy thoughts? Does this thought incline me toward sin and the patterns of the unbelieving world? Does considering this person in this way lead to impurity? Does reading this news site inflame ungodly passions in me? Do I dwell on what is good?
3. Does this thought help me see beauty?
There are many beauties in the world worth attending to. Sunrise over fresh snow. A child’s smile. Congregational singing. The poetry of Coleridge. The color green. Beauty calls to us. It awakens our delight and desire. It refuses to leave us unchanged. Beauty — anywhere it can be found — is worth our wonder.
But all these lesser beauties point beyond themselves. They are splashes of another majesty, echoes of a triune harmony. Beauty calls us to behold Beauty himself. When we learn to attend to beautiful things — along with those that are good and true — our minds can trace those beams back to the sun.
Ultimately, all our thoughts should be directed up toward our chief end: to glorify God by enjoying him forever. So, the first and final criteria for curating our thoughts is, Does this thought help me enjoy God more in the ways he intends? Does this line of thinking incline me toward him or cause me to forget him? Does it open my eyes to his goodness, truth, and beauty, or does it dull my spiritual senses? Does it help me pursue full and lasting joy in Jesus?
God gave us minds to feed our hearts with kindling that inflames our affections for him. Our minds exist for Christ. So, curate your thoughts to create ruts that run with that divine delight.
Desiring God