Power Thoughts: 12 Strategies to Win the Battle of the Mind (5 page)

Think about It

Have you made a mountain out of a molehill lately? Is there something in your life that you are blowing out of proportion?

Positive Thinking Helps You Enjoy Life

Years ago, a man named Captain Edward A. Murphy was working on a project for the United States Air Force. He became angry and cursed a technician who made a mistake, noting that, “If anything can be done wrong, this man will do it.” Over time, such thinking became known as “Murphy’s Law,” which basically states, “Nothing is as easy as it looks; everything takes longer than you expect; and if anything can go wrong, it will—at the worst possible moment.” How negative! Who could enjoy life if they lived according to Murphy’s Law? They would always expect the worst, so they would probably get it!

I believe God has laws that completely disagree with Murphy’s Law. The world may expect Murphy’s Law to operate in their lives, but we need to resist that kind of negative thinking and embrace God’s Law instead, which says something like this: “If anything can go right, it will; nothing is as difficult as it appears; everything is more rewarding than it appears; if anything good can happen to anybody, it will happen to me.”

Negative thinking always produces a negative life. How much more could you enjoy your life if your thoughts agreed with God’s Law, not Murphy’s? God has a great life for you, one He wants you to enjoy thoroughly and live to the fullest. I challenge you to live by God’s Law and consistently fill your mind with positive thoughts.

Think about It

In what specific circumstance do you need to start believing God’s Law instead of Murphy’s Law?

Don’t Let the Positive Become Negative

See the Big Picture

When we focus excessively on the negative elements of a certain situation to the exclusion of its good aspects, we are “filtering out” the positive and exaggerating the negative. Very few situations are 100 percent negative; most of the time, we can find something good in every circumstance, even if we have to be really diligent about it.

Let’s say you are a stay-at-home mom with young children and your husband leaves the house for work each day. Your four-year-old colors on the walls, cuts holes in his new pants, kicks his sister, and spills grape juice all over your freshly cleaned carpet. Let’s also say he finally learned to apologize to his sister without being reminded, confessed to cutting his pants instead of saying “The dog did it,” makes an attempt to clean his room, and says you are the best mom in the whole world. To say he was absolutely horrible all day long and forget about his good moments would be filtering out the good, and it would leave your mind with nothing but negative thoughts. Though there certainly would have been some negatives about that day, it had its positive experiences too.

I can’t emphasize too strongly how important it is that you resist the temptation to characterize something as totally negative or to focus excessively on negative aspects of a situation. Look at the situation as a whole and find something positive about it. That will help you become a positive person.

Think about It

What is the most negative situation in your life? Now, list three positive things about it. If you are not used to doing this it may stretch you but try anyway.

Don’t Make It Personal

Automatically blaming ourselves when something goes wrong or thinking everything that goes wrong is intended against us as individuals is called “personalizing” and it makes positive thinking very difficult. This happens often with young people on sports teams, when they miss the last shot, goal, or run of the game and feel they are solely responsible for a loss. They need to realize that both winning and losing are team efforts. It takes a whole team to win; it takes a whole team to lose. Even if one individual missed the last opportunity to win the game, there were many others missed along the way that added to the end result.

Similarly, let’s say a group of women decide to gather for lunch and at the last minute, Julie cancels. If Suzie is one who takes everything personally, she will automatically assume Julie didn’t want to be with her, when in reality, Julie may have had a family crisis, an unexpected houseguest, or a dental emergency.

Think about It

When was the last time you blamed yourself for something that wasn’t your fault? Was there another way you could have viewed the situation that didn’t make you the villain?

Do you get your feelings hurt a lot? Could it be that you are personalizing some situations? How can you avoid that in the future?

Anticipate the Best

One of the world’s largest shoe manufacturers sent two market researchers, independent of one another, to an underdeveloped nation to find out whether or not that country was a viable market for them. The first researcher sent a telegram to the home office saying, “No market here. Nobody wears shoes.” The second researcher sent a telegram back home saying, “Unlimited potential here—nobody has any shoes!”
⁷

I am sure the second researcher went on his trip expecting to send good news back to his employer—and he did. He could have perceived the fact that everyone in the nation he visited was barefooted as a challenge or an obstacle, as the other researcher did, and then his attitude would have been negative. But because he anticipated the best, he saw the situation in a positive light.

In any situation, a habit of thinking about what can go wrong or envisioning worst-case scenarios is a bad habit that needs to be broken. Let’s say you and a friend are planning a hiking trip. Most hiking trips have their challenges, but the person who will be able to overcome the challenges is the one who expects the trip to turn out well and is determined to enjoy it. The one who thinks,
Well, maybe it is a beautiful trail, but it’s full of mosquitoes and it’ll be hot and my feet will hurt after a while. And what if we get lost and can’t find our way back?
is doomed to have a long, miserable day! This person has already decided not to enjoy the journey before it ever begins. Many things in life come with challenges, but most of them can be overcome with a positive outlook that expects the best.

Think about It

Think about a challenge you are facing right now. How can you expect the best? What are two good things that could emerge from this challenge?

Accept a Few “Grays”

If we want to stay positive, we have to realize that everything is not black or white. Life has some gray areas, some “in-betweens.” Everything can’t be perfect all the time and everything isn’t horrible all the time. Deciding to skip a meeting or social event simply because you are running five minutes late or have a blemish on your face, canceling an entire trip because a flight is delayed, or feeling like a terrible human being over one innocent mistake is a way of thinking known as “polarizing,” and it leads to frustration and negativity.
⁸
To stay upbeat about life, accept that you won’t be perfect all the time, and neither will the people or things around you.

If we expect perfection out of life in general we usually tend to expect the same thing from people. That type of “unrealistic expectation” not only meets with a great deal of disappointment when our expectations are not met, but it also places unbearable pressure on people we care about and can eventually destroy relationships. Why not give people a break and stop demanding something from them that they have no ability to produce? The apostle James said that we all often stumble, fall, and offend in many things (see James 3:2). So if we
all
make mistakes
often
, why not realize that it is part of the human experience and relax?

Think about It

In what specific ways do you need to be more accepting of the “imperfect areas” in your life or in the way someone else’s imperfect areas affect you?

CHAPTER

3

More Power to You

A
young woman was going to meet her boyfriend’s parents for the first time. Of course, she wanted to look her best, but when she glanced at herself in the mirror, she saw that her leather pumps looked a bit dull. She grabbed a paper towel she had used to blot grease from the bacon she had for breakfast that morning, polished her shoes, and off she went. Upon arriving at the boyfriend’s parents’ home, they greeted her—and so did their spoiled, temperamental poodle. The dog followed her around happily all evening, because of the smell on her shoes. As her visit drew to a close and she prepared to leave, the parents remarked, “Our dog is an excellent judge of character, and she certainly likes you! Welcome to the family!”
¹

In this story, the boyfriend’s parents made a decision based on something they
thought
was true—but wasn’t true at all! Obviously, they couldn’t smell the bacon grease on their son’s girlfriend’s shoes, but the poodle certainly could and he responded favorably to the girl because of it. They decided the young woman would be a welcome addition to their family because the dog was such a great judge of character. People allow what they think to influence them in many ways, both big and small!

Thoughts Are Powerful

In recent years, much has been made of the fact that thoughts and attitudes influence people in many ways. Many medical schools and hospitals have received funding to study the mind-body connection and implement programs to help patients heal physically by becoming healthier mentally. It’s terrific that the medical community is paying attention to the mind-body connection, but the understanding of the power of thoughts is not a new development. In fact, it is addressed in both the Old and New Testaments, written thousands of years ago!

In Romans 14:14, the apostle Paul indicates his strong belief that thoughts are very powerful. Responding to a heated debate over whether or not Christians in the early Church should eat meat that had been offered to idols, he wrote, “I know and am convinced (persuaded) as one in the Lord Jesus, that nothing is [forbidden as] essentially unclean (defiled and unholy in itself). But [none the less] it is unclean (defiled and unholy) to anyone who
thinks
it is unclean” (emphasis mine).

Paul did not believe meat offered to idols could be tainted because he knew idols were nothing but wood or stone. However, many people did not see things as Paul did, and he understood that. So his advice to them was not to eat the meat if they
thought
it was unclean. He knew that eating meat they considered defiled would affect their conscience in the same way as it would have had the meat actually been unclean. In other words, in a sense, perception is reality.

The more I ponder Romans 14:14, the more amazed I am by the depth of Paul’s insight. The principle he understood was true when applied to meat offered to idols in ancient times, and it is still true today in any area of life. For example, a person who thinks,
I will never get a good job
is not likely to get one. People whose thoughts have convinced them they can never do anything right tend to make more mistakes than normal and have a high rate of failure. People who consider themselves accident prone seem to have one accident after another. In its extreme form, allowing thoughts to become realities can result in conditions such as anorexia, in which patients whose weight and body fat are far below normal are convinced in their minds that they are grossly overweight. They are so deeply convinced that even when they look in the mirror, the image they see appears a great deal larger that it actually is.

We can never move beyond what we think and believe. Many people today don’t even bother to think rationally about what they believe and sometimes end up building their entire lives on beliefs that simply are not true. For them, whatever “they” say becomes truth—and “they” may be the news media, a celebrity, a group of friends, or others who enjoy sharing opinions, but may or may not really have any idea what is true. When we believe lies, our minds can actually limit us and even keep us from doing what God created us to do. But, if we will contend for the truth, embrace the truth, and build our lives upon the truth, we will succeed in every endeavor.

Think about It

What one thought do you believe limits you more than anything else? Do you believe you can change it?

The Battle for Truth

In Paul’s day, many people believed the lie that meat offered to idols was unclean. That situation may still be relevant in some cultures today, but not universally. However, the world you and I live in is also riddled with lies. Many people do not believe there is such a thing as “absolute truth,” and think whatever truth does exist applies only to certain individuals or in situation-specific settings. Satan has constructed this entire mentality in order to push aside God’s eternal truths. It enables people to believe what is convenient and easy for them, rather than believing and living by God’s principles, which are designed to give life, peace, and victory to us and to give glory to Him.

One of the problems in the world today is that people want to “do their own thing” even if it makes them miserable. They don’t want to take direction from anyone or be told what to do. And they don’t want to read words of truth in a book called the Bible. This kind of arrogant independence and rebellion is responsible for many unpleasant results and even tragedies. I am sure, if you stop and consider it, you know of situations in which people have been determined to go their own way and ended up with terrible problems. This does not have to happen! God has given us instructions for life. They are true—and they work.