What’s more, don’t let yourselves be squeezed into the shape dictated by the present age. Instead, be transformed by the renewing of you’re minds, so that you can work out what God’s will is, what is good, acceptable and complete. ~Romans 12:2 [NTE]

“The ultimate freedom we have as human beings is the power to select what we will allow or require our minds to dwell upon.”

This quote by Dallas Willard is one of my favorites of all time.

We can choose what we dwell on in our thought life. God would not have told us to “set your mind on things above, not on things of the earth” if it were not possible to do so. No mere human has the authority to dictate what I should think about. No entity of this world has the God-given right to command my direction of thoughts, let alone my allegiance. Rather, we are to trust in the Lord with all our heart, and lean not on our own understanding. We must in all our ways acknowledge Him, and He will direct our path (Proverbs 3:5-6). He will direct your neural pathways. He has every right and every good intention to do this.

Now God may use people, organizations, or even the news media, to bring your awareness to an issue, or to where He would like you to direct your thought, but just because something is making headlines does not automatically make it worthy of my attention.

Oh it is the magician’s trick, so often employed by the evil one, to draw your focus to one hand while the other is doing what he doesn’t want you to see.

I am convinced that the devil’s number one strategy is to keep us away from constant conversation and contemplation with God. For in spiritual warfare, just as in physical warfare, your enemy will always try to cut off your supply lines so that you run out of energy and can no longer put up a fight.

The thing is, our enemy can’t cut off our supply line–only distract us from connecting to it. You always have a choice of where to direct your thoughts and energy. Even if something is in your face everyday, you can still pray, though it may not be as easy as, say, when you’re sitting by a beautiful lake all alone.

“Conformity to this age is to be wrapped up in the things that are temporal, to have all our thought oriented to that which is seen and temporal…If all our calculations, plans, ambitions are determined by what falls within life here, then we are children of this age.” says commentator John Murray on our verse Romans 12:2.

It can sometimes feel like that lonely daffodil up there–everyone around you might be doom and gloom, worrying constantly about getting sick or who’s in office, and you just try to continue to shine. And that gets lonely, but don’t give in and succumb to directing your precious focus where others try to steer you just because you think you should. Guard your immensely valuable attention that it is not given away, at great cost, to the magicians always selling something. Keep your focus where God would have it be–on Him. Seek God first, and He will direct your thoughts, which may or may not be what everybody else is screaming about.

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BONUS MATERIAL

As three of you know, I’m a huge Rambo fan. I really love what Sylvester Stallone did with the fourth installment in 2008. He researched all over the world for the greatest atrocities with the least amount of media coverage. This he found to be the genocide in Burma, or what is now called Myanmar. And he made his movie in order to bring awareness to that devastation. He did not simply go with what was most popular, or what everyone was talking about. He shed light on what was mostly hidden.

Verse 2 may be translated: “Do not let yourselves be shaped by what everyone else does, but rather let yourselves be transformed by a whole new way of thinking, so you can discern what conforms to God’s will, namely what is good, and pleasing, and perfect.” ~Paul Achtemeier