February 25, 2010
Chapter 1
From Thought to Destiny
Our thoughts and questions determine our words and choices, which determine our habits, which determine our character, which determines our destiny.
If you do not believe that God created everything, including people, you are hardly yet ready to appreciate most of what we will be covering in this course. I recently heard a story about an atheist who demanded to know why no national holiday had been set aside for atheists who “felt” discriminated against because of the Christian holidays of Christmas and Easter and the Jewish holidays of Hanukah, etc. To his amazement, the judge told him that he should be happy with April 1. For many years that has been set-aside for him and his fellow atheists.
“The fool has said in his heart, ‘There is no God”’ (Psalms 14:1; 53:1). For everyone else (which still is most of us on Planet Earth), it is God Who has given us the mental faculties with which we think, so that we can have the means of operating, discovering, remembering, relating, communicating, determining, enjoying, etc.
Whether we believe that God enables us to think, or that we just randomly developed the ability on our own, we must agree that there would be absolutely no meaning to us outside our God-given ability to think. Whether people think wisely or foolishly with their mental faculties, we are all thinkers. Our thinking leads to our choices, expressed through our words and actions. Our choices determine our habits. Our habits determine our character. And our character determines our destiny. What we think is so all-important.
“As a man thinks in his heart, so is he” (Proverbs 23:7). “From the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks” (Matthew 12:34). Our thoughts, if entertained for any length of time, begin taking root in our heart, which is our “seat of affection.”
Some thoughts may appear to originate with our own imagination. God created our imagination to be used for good. There is good imagination that is of God, by God, and for God, and there is vain imagination that comes from any source outside of God.
For the highest, immediate and long-term good of God, others, and ourselves, we must learn how to discern and nurture our Godly imaginations and thoughts while discerning and rejecting all vain imaginations and thoughts. We certainly cannot allow any vain imagination and thought to stay with us for any amount of time, because it will take quick root in our hearts. When once it has taken root, it is so difficult to uproot. Yet, at any time, it is still better to uproot vain thoughts than to allow them to develop into bad choices, which ultimately lead to the wrong habits, then character, then destiny.
Our thoughts have everything to do with our destiny. “There is a way that seems right unto man, but the end (destiny) thereof, is the way of death” (Proverbs 16:25). And, along the way, we can add that the man headed in the wrong way will experience failure after failure, which is God’s way of trying to slow him down by these “speed bumps” long enough to get his thoughts right.
Failures are meant to be only experiences, not persons. But the person who refuses to learn from the failures he experiences is driving hard to become the failure himself. God is trying to save us from ourselves and our own foolish thinking.
“God is a Spirit; and they that worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth” (John 4:24). God has created us “in His own image” as spiritual beings with the capacity to discern and value on several levels in order to best communicate with Him in His language and live in His culture as we were originally created to be and do. “The Lord God has given me the language of disciples that I may cause the weary one to rest with a word” (Isaiah 50:4). He will enable us to speak clearly the language of His heart with less and less accent of the world system around us.
My prayer is that MENTORING FOUNDATIONS will help us better discern and value the precious Godly thought over the worthless vain thought, the holy thought over the profane thought, the spiritual thought over the carnal thought, and the eternal thought over the temporal thought. As we listen more closely to our Father God’s voice and imitate the lifestyle of heaven’s culture, we will learn to speak with less and less accent of the surrounding world’s accent and fit better into the culture of our dear Father God’s Kingdom.
As our loving Father’s dear children we are to discern and reject the language and lifestyle of the world system’s false cultures. “You are the light of the world. …let your light so shine before men that they may see your good works and glorify your Father Who is in heaven” (Matthew 5:15, 16).
Our thoughts are often responses to spoken or unspoken questions or curiosities. Every thought tries to provoke another question or curiosity. Our mind seems to be on a quest to always know more. “Inquiring minds want to know!” God designed us to be on an enjoyable, eternal quest to know Him and His inexhaustible truth. All truth is God’s truth! And, since He is Creator of all, there is nothing true outside of Him and His unlimited domain. He created us in His own image for the purpose of our enjoying Him as He enjoys us both now and forever without even one boring moment.
How, then, can we learn to discern and separate what is the highest good for God, others, and ourselves from what is not? Somehow, we must begin with our thoughts. We do well to pray along with David, “Let the words of my mouth and the meditations of my heart be acceptable in Your sight, oh Lord, my Strength and my Redeemer” (Psalms 19:14). “Teach me to number my days that I may apply my heart unto wisdom” (Psalms 90:12). David’s son, Solomon, has a collection of proverbs that contrast the wise and foolish man’s thoughts and choices. We say to God with David, “Your word is a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path” (Psalms 119:105).
It seems, nowadays, that so much scripture, if not all, jumps out at me with the same underlying message from our Father God about how to discern and value the worthy thought over vanity, the holy over the profane, the spiritual over the carnal, and the eternal over the temporal. How grateful I am for this God-given advantage to replace vain thoughts with good ones in order to be the success He designed me to be both now and forever! This is also your advantage! He wants to turn your losses and mine into successes! This course is intended to help us to become the winners God designed us to be. It is not too late!
Most, if not all, of my thoughts appear to come from questions that may arise from any situation at any time, even very unexpected questions. It is possible to sleep at night and wake up the next morning with all kinds of thoughts having continued developing in your head. Our thought processes, like computers, run while we sleep, either for good or bad. So, we ask God to help us, as Paul says, “to bring our thoughts into captivity [under His control]” (II Corinthians 10:5). This can make the difference between a restful night’s sleep and a bad night, a productive outcome and a tumultuous experience.
The King James Version of the Bible says that “God gives His beloved sleep,” while the New American Standard Version says, “God gives to His beloved in His sleep” (Psalms 127:2). Language scholars assure us that both versions work together to give us the full meaning. God Who gives His beloved sleep also gives to His beloved child in his sleep. And God only gives good gifts to His beloved children. While we are asleep, Our Father God communicates to us in His pure heavenly “language of disciples” without a worldly accent in order to impart to us restful thoughts while training our minds to speak the same restful language to others who are weary of the world system’s frustrating noises.
So, God Himself is already communicating with us as we sleep. Sometimes I am tempted to wish that all learning would be this easy, but we are reminded that in our waking hours we are to “study to show yourself approved unto God, a workman that needs not be ashamed, rightly dividing the Word of Truth” (II Timothy 2:15). David tells us the best time to “meditate in His law,” His Word of Truth, is “day and night” (Psalm 1:2), leaving no time or space to “give place to the devil” (Ephesians 4:27).
There is no such thing as an “empty head.” Either good and restful thoughts or vain unproductive thoughts are trying to thrive in our minds all the time. “Whatsoever things are good, pure, lovely, and of good report, think on these things” (Philippians 4:8). These come from God’s language and culture of disciples, which trumps all the world’s vain, manmade cultures.