Good morning! Do you ever stop and take an analytical look at what you or others have done for as long as you can remember? This morning I began doing that for no apparent reason. Questioning the status quo is something that happens to many of us, and it is not always a bad thing. Certainly unchecked questioning and experimentation with a group of people or properties that you are responsible for should not be undertaken and could cause serious harm. However, questioning and seeking counsel may bring something to light that is actually harming yourself or others. It was not that long ago that doctors were handing out prescriptions for anti-depressants with unchecked enthusiasm, and the patients were getting younger and younger. Suddenly, it seemed, some tragedies started to appear and someone else began questioning whether such a habit was good for anyone, much less toddlers and babies. Almost no drug is a panacea, but many have been prescribed that way. I am picking on doctors and drugs as an example, but there may be habits that you or I have that are harmful to our own selves and that may need rethinking.
As I grow in Christ, it seems that my mind is opening to new possibilities. I know that the intellectual establishment would claim credit, after all I have been in college for three+ years, but that is only part of the overall improvement. Much opening of my thoughts has also come from writing this devotional each day, and from studying the Bible morning and night on a daily basis. Introspection has also provided new ground for rearranging old thoughts and habits. I have often wondered what meditation is, having never seen a satisfactory explanation, and I now think that thinking and concentrating internally, without the roiling cloud of emotion, has much to do with meditating. Another part of meditation is thinking, even arguing in your inner dialog, on God and Jesus. Listening is a third part, not empty-minded openness to any influence, but listening for the encouraging, correcting, uplifting, and need I say - loving - voice of God brings the very best in wisdom. Like any skill, meditation takes practice, as does studying the Word of God and analytical introspection of our thoughts and desires. Practice never sounds like much fun, and it isn't always fun to come face to face with an urgent desire to sin, the calling of the flesh. However, like medicine, if we can't name the disease, it is much harder to confront it. Let Jesus lead you and me to confront and renounce those sins. We will be better for it and Jesus is ever ready to forgive and heal. Read the Gospels and see how many times they speak of His healing and forgiving, and they were all people just like you and me, sins and problems by the score.
Praise God for the healing and forgiving promise of our Lord Jesus!
Bucky
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