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In
Growing Thoughts
A lady said of a certain person who frequently had trouble
in her spiritual life, "Her chief trouble is that her
thoughts turn inward too much." In growing thoughts,
like ingrowing toe-nails, are sometimes very painful.
There is such a thing as focusing our thoughts too much
internally. Wherever we center our thoughts we produce a
reaction. Centering our thoughts on our own spiritual
difficulties, on our own inner experiences and upon our
feelings and sensations, is likely to produce an effect
entirely different from that which we desire to produce.
Dr. Stephen Smith, hale, hearty, and happy at the age of
ninety-nine, said among other things in stating his
philosophy of life, "War has killed its millions, but
introspection has killed its tens of millions. Next to an
ill advised and over plentiful diet it has shortened more
lives than almost any other cause that we can name. The
man who is forever thinking about himself is degenerating.
The hardest patients I have had to handle were those given
to introspection and self-analysis."
Note those persons who are extremely careful about
themselves in physical matters. They are always concerned
with what effect things will have upon them. They wonder
if this will hurt them, and how that will affect them.
They are afraid of taking cold, and of this, that, and the
other thing. They make living too serious a business. They
are nearly always the victims of their own carefulness.
The one who gets along well physically usually the one who
uses good common sense and practically forgets he has a
body.
In spiritual things it is the people who are always taking
their spiritual temperature, and looking at their
spiritual tongue, and feeling their spiritual pulse, and
measuring their spiritual stature, who have most trouble.
Some people are constantly questioning their own motives.
They are constantly asking, "Should I have done
that?" They give microscopic attention to the details
of their life. They are all the time asking, "Did I
do right?" "Am I right?" Everything must
have a thorough microscopical examination. The smallest
detail of life must not be passed without attention.
It is true that the Bible says, "Examine
yourselves," but it has no reference to such
microscopic examination. If we should be going somewhere
and our foot would slip we should not take for granted
that we had turned around and headed in the opposite
direction. That one little slip is but an incident in the
journey. When the path is observed as a whole that little
incident only a trifle. The general course has been
forward.
Some people cannot sing the song of Christian joyfulness
because they are too much absorbed in examining
themselves. Neither do they feel like singing, for they
are constantly finding little faults and magnifying them
out of all proportion to their significance. We all know
people who have ingrowing thoughts. It is proper for us to
pay due heed to ourselves, but this ought to occupy a
comparatively small portion of our time. Some people have
so much trouble keeping themselves right that they never
get anything else done. The trouble is they are making too
hard a task of it. The' would be just as nearly right
without making half the effort, or perhaps a tenth of the
effort. In other words, if they did not make such an
effort they would not even then go wrong.
We need rather to be concerned to have sufficient velocity
to produce a momentum that will keep us on the way. When I
first started to learn bicycle riding it took all my
attention to keep balanced, and in spite of myself I would
fall over now and then. I soon became enough accustomed to
riding that I guided the wheel automatically, and gave no
more attention to balance than when walking. At first I
was constantly turning the wheel this way and that.
Consequently I made crooked path. That is why many
Christians do so poorly. They are so intent upon keeping
themselves right that they have their eyes constantly upon
them selves. Let them look ahead, become intent on
reaching what lies before them, and they will make real
progress. They will not fall over nearly so easily as when
they are so careful about themselves.
In studying ourselves and losing sight of others we become
morbid. We brood over our shortcomings or seeming
shortcomings. We lose our courage. Things look dark and
discouraging. We may say that Satan is after us, that he
is accusing us. Most accusations have their origin in
ourselves. We are accusing our selves. 'We are condemning
ourselves and imagine that it is Satan doing so.
There is a scientific side to this that we ought to
understand. There are two parts to our mental being. There
are many things that go on in our mind of which are
conscious. We think certain things and know we think them.
We consciously follow out certain lines or trends of
thought. On the other hand, there is a part of our mind of
whose workings we are unaware. This is called the
subconscious mind.
You have often noticed that a thought all worked out and
complete comes into your mind apparently from nowhere. Or
you are suddenly affected by an emotion.
You cannot account for feeling that emotion. If it is a
pleasant emotion, you enjoy it and think little about it.
If it is an unpleasant one, you may be troubled by and
wonder what caused it. The secret of the matter is, things
have been going on in your subconscious mind of which you
knew nothing. Suddenly what was in your subconscious mind
was projected into your conscious mind.
Perhaps a few days ago you wondered over something that
happened, and questioned whether or not you were what you
ought to be spiritually. That thought presently faded out
of your mind. You thought no more about it. A week, two
weeks, or a month later, you suddenly, and without any
seeming reason, felt a sense of condemnation come over
you. You wondered what caused it. Perhaps you thought
Satan was at work. the only trouble was you did not
understand that the thought you had the other day and had
forgotten about kept on working in your subconscious mind
and just now has projected itself into your conscious
mind. Þ
This is the secret of much of our trouble. Those
accusations you had did not come from Satan. They are the
product of your own thoughts. You started the thought
working, then got your mind off on something else. But
that did not get the thought out of your mind. What shall
we do to hinder such things from working in our mind and
having such a depressing, discouraging effect upon us?
When the thing comes into your mind that starts this train
of thought, meet it with the assertion of victory, meet it
with real faith. Drive it from your mind with some good
thought. Assure your heart that God is with you and is
taking care of you and that no evil will come to you. This
will uproot the other thought from your mind and it will
not continue to work in your subconscious mind. Þ
Remember, when you allow yourself to think discouraging
thoughts, when you allow yourself to question your motives
and examine yourself with such attentive scrutiny, you are
loading up your subconscious mind with what sooner or
later will come out into your conscious mind again to
trouble you. Therefore, do not plant such seeds of
troublesome thoughts in your mind. Plant thoughts of
faith, of victory. of trust, of assurance, of confidence,
and these will bear fruit that you will be glad to reap.
Þ
We can imagine things about ourselves as easily as we can
imagine things about others. Our imagination can be
misdirected. Larson has said, "Imagination when
misdirected can produce more ills than any other
faculty."Many people are tortured by their
imagination. Imaginary ills and imaginary foes beset them.
Of course we shall have heartaches in life. Of course we
shall have things we can hardly keep from thinking over.
But we should avoid magnifying them. We should treat them
with good common sense. Instead of lavishing so much time
upon ourselves and trying so hard to keep right ourselves,
if we turn our attention toward helping others, we find
many of our own troubles cured, without any medicine.
About two thirds of our troubles might be cured by
forgetting them. Someone has written,
"If
you were busy being glad,
And cheering others who were sad,
Altho your heart might ache a bit,
You'd soon forget to notice it."
Most of our troubles are imaginary or at least nine tenths
imaginary. Paul speaks about "casting down
imaginations" (II Cor. 10: 5). That is something we
should all learn. Do not expect of yourself more than you
expect of others. Judge yourself by the same standards by
which you judge others. God expects no more of you than he
expects of others. He does not want you to be melancholy.
He wants you to be joyful, to sing the songs of his
kingdom, to have a heart full of praises. To have these
you must turn your eyes to God more and see his beauties
and perfections. Forget yourself and think of God and his
goodness.
The fruits of thoughts are feelings. If you do not think
right you cannot feel right. Naturally when you do not
feel as you think you ought to feel, you are reedy to
condemn yourself and say, "Well, there must be
something wrong." Yes, there is something wrong, but
in the majority of instances that wrong is merely in your
thoughts. If there is something actually wrong in your
heart, wrong in your relations with God, or wrong in your
relation with your fellow-men, you can locate that more
easily. It is some very definite thing. It is not
something that you need hunt for for days and cannot find.
The things that stand between us and God, or between us
and others, if they are worth noticing at all, are at
least large enough to be easily discovered and are
definite enough to be easily understood. The remedy for
them is easily applied and its results are definite and
easily known.
We should understand clearly that those things that are
obscure, that trouble us, that we cannot locate, and that
bring gloom and despondency and discouragement, are things
that originate in the wrong outlook, or in a wrong
attitude toward ourselves. They are the fruits of wrong
thinking.
So let us get rid of our ingrowing thoughts. Let us get
outside of ourselves into the sunshine of God. Then our
hearts will become lighter. We shall see the goodness of
God, and almost before we know it we shall be singing the
song of the victorious life.
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