Think About It
The reality of the mental factor in sports is becoming clear to spectators. We’ve seen athletes standing up and speaking out about their own mental well-being, which is a stark contrast to what we’ve become accustomed to: watching athletes push through pain, injury, and mental hurdles in hopes to achieve greatness. When we see athletes push through these physical injuries it can overshadow the mental hurdles that they often face. There is a mental side to everything we do in life and it’s not a new idea to talk about. The apostle Paul wrote a great deal about how important the mental side to life can be.
“Because we belong to the day, we must live decent lives for all to see. Don’t participate in the darkness of wild parties and drunkenness, or in sexual promiscuity and immoral living, or in quarreling and jealousy. Instead, clothe yourself with the presence of the Lord Jesus Christ. And don’t let yourself think about ways to indulge your evil desires.” (Romans 13:13-14)
Did you catch the mental side that Paul addressed? First, he talked about the physical side of things, that we must live decent lives for all to see, not participating in wild parties and drunkeness or sexual promiscuity or immoral living or quarreling and jealousy. These are all physical acts that people can see us doing and we are told to avoid them. Then Paul addressed the mental side: don’t let yourself think about ways to indulge your evil desires. Paul gave us a list of things we shouldn’t do and then told us to not let ourselves think about ways to do those things. This is the mental side of the Christian walk, but Paul didn’t leave us with a vague instruction to just not think about it; if we keep reading in Paul’s letters we find that he gave us a list of alternative things to think about.
“And now, dear brothers and sisters, one final thing. Fix your thoughts on what is true, and honorable, and right, and pure, and lovely, and admirable. Think about things that are excellent and worthy of praise. Keep putting into practice all you learned and received from me—everything you heard from me and saw me doing. Then the God of peace will be with you.” (Philippians 4:8-9)
Not only did Paul give us a list of plenty of things that we should be fixing our thoughts on, but he gave us the why as well. If we do these things, if we put this into practice, then the God of peace will be with us. Could you use peace from God? Fix your thoughts on true things, not lies. Think about honorable things, not dishonorable thoughts. Whatever is right, pure, lovely, admirable, excellent and worthy of praise, these are the things we should be thinking about. If we are trying to indulge our evil desires, if we are filling our heads with explicit music, television shows, movies, or books, then it will be that much harder to fix our thoughts on the things from that list. It would be like filling a garage with junk and then attempting to put precious treasures in there. You can’t keep filling it with junk and expect there to be room for treasure. So rather than thinking about ways to indulge in your sinful desires, think about the things from Paul’s list in Philippians 4, and when you do, you will be filled with peace from God.
May the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all.
