My Thinking Cap...
Posted by:
Tricia Goyer on
January 22, 2008 at
11:42PM EST
Have you every heard the phrase, "Time to put on your thinking cap."
Usually, when we hear this we know that something's coming that will
mentally challenge us, and after serving God for eighteen years, I can
honestly say the most mentally challenge thing I've faced is changing
my thinking--of setting my mind on God and allowing Him to transform my
mind and thoughts.
Changing our thinking is hard because it
involves changing how we see the world and our place in it. Even though
I was seventeen when I gave my heart to the Lord, I was pretty set in
my ways. I knew what I liked, who I liked, and I saw the world one way.
Thankfully, God doesn't expect us to change overnight. Transformation
is a process. The journey through life is ... uh, a journey. We won't
arrive until we take our first step into heaven.
This morning I
was reading the second chapter of Mark and I realized I'm not the only
one who had trouble changing my thinking. During Jesus' time on earth
there was one group that struggled with this the most. Before Jesus
came, the job of the religious leaders were to be big know-it-alls.
They knew "the keys" to making God happy, and this involved a series of
rituals and duties, prayers and public display. And more than any other
group, they didn't want Jesus bucking the system. Their minds were set,
and anything different than what they knew to be true was something
they opposed with everything in them. Mark 2:18-23 shares Jesus'
response to their concrete thinking:
18 Once when John’s
disciples and the Pharisees were fasting, some people came to Jesus and
asked, “Why don’t your disciples fast like John’s disciples and the
Pharisees do?”
19 Jesus replied, “Do wedding guests fast
while celebrating with the groom? Of course not. They can’t fast while
the groom is with them. 20 But someday the groom will be taken away
from them, and then they will fast.
21 “Besides, who would
patch old clothing with new cloth? For the new patch would shrink and
rip away from the old cloth, leaving an even bigger tear than before.
22 “And no one puts new wine into old wineskins. For the wine would
burst the wineskins, and the wine and the skins would both be lost. New
wine calls for new wineskins.”
Jesus knew these men needed a new
way of thinking. Their old ideas (old wineskins) were rigid and were
unable to hold what he was about to do--what he was already doing. He
was literally telling them, "Change your thinking, for I'm going to
blow your mind!"
Jesus' statement to these leaders made me stop
and think of my life. Are their any areas where my thinking is rigid?
Are there any old, concrete thought patterns that need to be blasted
out of the water? It's something I'm prayerfully bringing to God,
because more than anything I don't want my old thinking to keep me from
being filled up with as much of Jesus as I can!
