life on Thought Life

The battle for your life is fought and won in your mind. God wants you to take control of your mind, in Jesus' name, through the power of His Holy Spirit. You can think your way into changing your...

When we have the same thought again, the line of the original thought is deepened, causing what's called a memory trace. With each repetition the trace goes deeper and deeper, forming and embeddin...

One thing is certain: if you don’t shape your life, it will be shaped for you. And to shape your life, you need to know how to shape your mind—you need mind-management.

My thought it is a wanton ranger,  It skips away;  I fear 'twill bring my soul in danger  On Judgment Day...

You will always find what you are looking for. Think about the difference between two birds: a vulture and a hummingbird. Vultures soar high in the sky, looking and searching. What does a vulture find...

Did you know that more has been discovered about our minds in the last twenty years than in all the time before that? Did you know that an estimated 60 to 80 percent of visits to primary care physicia...

In the first chapter of her book, Get Out of Your Head , author Jennie Allen shares a vulnerable and honest moment from her own life about just how hard it can be to focus in a world of distraction...

Our lives are always moving in the direction of our strongest thoughts. What we think shapes who we are.

Many of us tend to be passive with our thoughts and feelings. We treat them like they rule us, like they are in charge of us, and not the other way around. We forget that our thoughts and feelings are...

Mind-management is a skill that needs to be learned and constantly upgraded as we grow from childhood into adulthood. For every new experience we need a new set of mind-management tools.

What Determines Happiness?  Imagine a movie theater full of a hundred people. These hundred individuals represent the full continuum of happiness: Some are exceptionally happy, others less so, and ...

An elderly man had horrible nightmares, the same event happening over and over in his dreams. He would dream that an enormous green dragon was chasing him, and he would become frantic. Then, just abou...

In recent years, an entire discipline of modern psychology has developed called cognitive behavioral therapy. This breakthrough teaching reveals that many problems, from eating disorders to relational...

For a long time it seemed to me that real life was about to begin, but there was always some obstacle in the way. Something had to be got through first, some unfinished business; time still to be serv...

To enter into the realm of contemplation one must in a certain sense die: but this death is in fact the entrance into a higher life. It is a death for the sake of life, which leaves behind all that we...

But it’s not so simple, that sort of “quiet hour”. It has to be learned. A lot of unimportant inner litter and bits and pieces have to be swept out first. Even a small head can be piled high inside wi...

The great irony of our time is that even as we are living longer, we are thinking shorter.

Another Bible translation says that Mary said, “My soul magnifies the Lord” (NKJV, emphasis added). What did she mean by magnifies? When you look at something through a magnifying glass, it looks much...

The insight that we can exercise some control over our thoughts and feelings is deep in Christianity.

The manner in which Christians have thought about life after death, or about the world to come, has varied considerably from century to century and from place to place. It is easy enough to understand...

I grew up near Washington D.C. surrounded by politics…I helped with the campaign of a friend’s father as he ran for state office, watched our friendly county supervisor become a US congressman, and le...

Our faith is not a matter of our hearing what Christ said long ago and “trying to carry it out. The real Son of God is at your side. He is beginning to turn you into the same kind of thing as Himself....

In his excellent book, The Magnificent Story , James Bryan Smith shares this short little anecdote from the world of bumper stickers. While funny, it also brings up the commonplace idolatry that ...

Jim Rayburn, the founder of Young Life, a nationwide youth ministry, used to say, “It’s a sin to bore a kid with the gospel.” But what about adults? Is it okay to bore grownups with the gospel? I ask ...

Pastor: The Lord calls to all to “Come and see” who He is, repent of our sins and put our faith in Christ. Silence for personal confession. Pastor: Merciful God, People: we confess ...

We think in generalities, but we live in detail.

In an old joke, people refer to seminary as cemetery. Attending one does feel like that at times, so the last thing I expected to discover in a dingy classroom in the basement of a Pasadena seminary s...

There is but one truly serious philosophical problem and that is suicide. Albert Camus Two events recently collided in my mind and coalesced into this short essay: The first was a relatively in...

If you had to summarize your life in six words, what would they be? Several years ago an online magazine asked that question. It was inspired by a possibly legendary challenge posed to Ernest Hemingwa...

Life is not a problem to be solved, but a reality to be experienced.