Reprogramming Our Minds Through Scripture

 "Why is this happening to me?"  

"It's always something!"  "I can't get a break."  

"I am always worried about...."

Our minds are always in motion, but often what they are producing is the "thorns and thistles" I wrote about yesterday, the ones God mentioned to Adam in Genesis 3.  We eat our daily food while wrestling with the negativity of the thorns and thistles of our minds. But God's plan is to redeem us from that curse of Adam and to renew our minds with love, joy, peace, patience, goodness, creativity, and so forth.

"You are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which He prepared for us in advance" (Ephesians 2).  In another place, Paul says, "You are God's field, God's building."  Now when I am working in my garden, I don't sow seeds of destruction and aggressive weeds, but rather those of beauty, order, and delight.  In fact, I am most busy weeding out the things that threaten my handiwork.  Nor does a builder allow crooked and misshapen beams and weak foundations to undermine his work.  

When the Holy Spirit comes, His first mission is to "convict the world of sin" --- that is, to point out the things that are ruining God's workmanship in us: the crooked beams, the weak foundations, the aggressive weeds overtaking the garden.    Jesus spoke about the kingdom of God as a mustard seed that becomes a large tree, welcoming the birds that dwell in its branches.   The seed of that kingdom is planted in each one of us, but it is daily threatened by the negativity of our minds, of the media, of the thorns and thistles of our lives.  Where does the work of "weeding" take place for us but in Scripture?

I sought the Lord and He answered me; from all my fears He delivered me! (Ps. 34).

I will take shelter under the shadow of His wings until the disaster has passed me by (Ps. 57:2)

Surely goodness and kindness will follow me, and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever (Ps. 23).

Little by little, we begin to believe and to recite these truths to ourselves, weeding out the destructive thoughts that threaten to overwhelm and defeat our joy.  It is like cool water to a thirsty soul or dry land!

When we keep our kingdom trees watered and well-tended with Scripture, the branches lush and green, others are drawn to our comforting shade, just as we are drawn to theirs.  We nurture the kingdom of God through prayer, through Scripture, and through fellowship with others whose mind and hearts and wills are well-watered by the Spirit of God.  After promising the woman at the well a spring of  "living water" (John 4), Jesus also tells his disciples that out of their bellies will flow rivers of living water (John 7).  A spring waters our personal lives; a river or stream flows out of us to others.  In Sirach 24, Scripture is compared to the 4 sparkling rivers that originally watered the Garden of Eden, before rain came upon the earth: 

  All this is true of the book of the Most High's covenant...It overflows, like the Phison, with wisdom--like the Tigris in the days of new fruits.  It runs over like the Euphrates, with understanding, like the Jordan at harvest time.  It sparkles like the Nile with knowledge, like the Gihon at vintage time.  The first man never finished comprehending wisdom, nor will the last succeed in fathoming her.  For deeper than the sea are her thoughts; her counsels, than the great abyss.

Now I, like a rivulet from her stream, channeling the waters into a garden, said to myself, "I will water my plants, my flower bed I will drench"; and suddenly this rivulet of mine became a river, then this stream of mine, a sea.  Thus do I send my teachings forth shining like the dawn, to become known afar off. 

Yesterday I quoted Mark 4 about the farmer who planted seed in his garden and slept and woke and the seed flourished he knew not how.  When we begin to read Scripture for ourselves, the seed grows; our hearts and our minds are watered; we know not how.  But the seed, watered by the Holy Spirit, "accomplishes the purpose for which [God] has sent it"   (Is. 55), producing fruit in us.  We do not see it growing, but trust me, others will! And the negativity, fear, and anxiety that daily threaten our joy will be gradually weeded out of our lives.